Food allergies are ‘strain on family’
Food allergies plague thousands of adults and children. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 4 to 6 percent of children in the United States have food allergies. While some kids outgrow these allergies, others will have to avoid certain foods for life or suffer severe health risks.
“It’s a huge strain on a family’s quality of life because there’s always this worry, no matter where you are or what you’re doing: I hope my child is safe,” Dr. Ruchi Gupta, assistant professor of pediatrics and health services researcher at Northwestern University and Children’s Memorial Hospital tells CNN.
Right now, there is no treatment, but a recent study is providing some hope.
Fighting back against food allergies
A recent team of researchers examined 55 kids with an egg allergy. Forty of the kids were treated through immunotherapy. The concept involves giving children small quantities of the food they are allergic to and increasing that amount over time. The idea is that children build up a tolerance to the food. In this recent study, 75 percent of the kids who received immunotherapy were considered “desensitized” to eggs.
Ruslan Medzhitov, professor of immunobiology at Yale School of Medicine, says the study is a “very important investment” because it’s moving toward a treatment. If researchers can find out why immunotherapy works, it could become a standard of care for long-term immune tolerance of allergens.
Even if continuing studies are successful, this type of therapy probably wouldn’t make it into mainstream medicine for at least another five years, researchers say.
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