Can your peanut-allergic child be treated by simply wearing a patch? That is what researchers at National Jewish Health are researching. National Jewish Health, along with four other institutions in the Consortium of Food Allergy Research (CoFAR), are currently testing the safety of a peanut patch.
The peanut patch would work to desensitize allergic patiens by exposing them to increasing amounts of peanut protein, similar to the way allergy shots can desensitize people to pollen. The patch will release minute doses of peanut oil under the skin, like nicotine patches used by people trying to quit tobacco. The aim is to educate the body so it does not over-react to peanut exposure.
Human safety trials have started in Europe and the United States and it is hoped the patch could become available within three to four years.
One of its inventors, Dr Pierre-Henri Benhamou, said, "We envisage that the patch would be worn daily for several years and would slowly reduce the severity of accidental exposure to peanuts. The beauty of the patch is that it is absorbed just under the skin and is taken up by the immune system. But because it doesn't go directly into the bloodstream there is no risk of a severe reaction. We have carried out a number of small safety trials and now moving to trials that will establish the size of the dose needed and for how long the patch would need to be worn."
They believe that after about a year of wearing the patch, patients may be cured of a severe reaction to peanut. But it would need to be worn for several more years before a nut allergy sufferer could safely be exposed to peanut.
Dr Benhamou said, "At best we are talking about a sufferer eventually being able to eat modest amounts of peanut without a reaction. But what we want to do most is eliminate the severe reaction that occurs when people are exposed to the tiniest speck of peanut."
Read the whole article from physorg.com at http://bit.ly/dGGkAD
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