Hope for nut allergy therapy

Peanut allergy sufferer Nathan Brown with his mother Elizabeth. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey

Children suffering from potentially lethal nut allergies have been offered the hope of leading normal lives for the first time with the success of an experimental treatment.

Doctors in Britain have developed a pioneering therapy that "retrains" the immune systems of patients who have food allergies so they become desensitised to the food. Trials have helped 20 children with severe peanut allergies overcome their condition.

Before the treatment, many of the patients could not touch even trace amounts of peanuts without suffering a reaction. The researchers claim the youngsters can now safely eat up to 12 peanuts a day without any effect.

In New Zealand it is estimated that two in every 100 people have peanut allergy, from mild to severe.

Nathan Brown, 9, of Massey in West Auckland, was first found to have a peanut allergy when he shared a piece of peanut-butter toast as a baby. Welts formed on his face, his eyes puffed up and he started gagging. He was rushed to a local clinic for treatment.

Five times since then he has suffered anaphylaxis, a life-threatening allergic reaction which involves constriction of the airways and difficulty breathing.

He carefully avoids peanuts and peanut products and has adrenaline "EpiPen" injectors - a life-saving treatment - at home, at school and in a medical kit he carries.

Nathan's mother, Elizabeth Brown, said that even minute traces ofpeanut could trigger a reaction.

"Over the last year, he's had two anaphylactic reactions. One was from someone who had touched peanuts and then touched him."

Allergy New Zealand spokeswoman Inga Stunzner said the British trial, like a similar one in the United States, did offer hope, "but it's early days yet as to whether we would ever have something like that in New Zealand".

"We are still at the stage of trying to get allergic disease on the radar."

She warned against peanut allergy sufferers trying the desensitisation technique at home, as the trials were conducted in hospitals, where emergency treatment was close at hand if a patient suffered a reaction.

The British researchers are planning larger trials to test the therapy's effectiveness and hope to develop it to treat other dangerous allergies to foods such as milk, egg and gluten.