A potential treatment for children with an allergy to peanuts has shown great promise in a large clinical trial of 85 participants, BBC News reported.
For the study, published Thursday in the journal Lancet, 85 children were given peanut protein every day in increments that gradually grew larger. After six months of the treatment, children with peanut allergies could eat the equivalent to five peanuts in a day.
Among fatal allergic reactions, peanuts are the most common. Doctors stressed that, while the results are promising, the treatment is not ready for widespread use. The treatment has the potential to be the first for peanut allergies that does not involve checking every food label before consuming.
"A year later I could eat five whole peanuts with no reaction at all," Lena Barden, 11, told BBC News. "The trial has been an experience and adventure that has changed my life and I've had so much fun, but I still hate peanuts!"
Study researcher Dr. Andrew Clark said the treatment is a drastic turnaround, even if the patients never even buy a can of peanuts. Not reacting to peanuts can save a lot of stress when it comes to buying food or eating out.
"It really transformed their lives dramatically; this really comes across during the trial," he said. "It's a potential treatment and the next step is to make it available to patients, but there will be significant costs in providing the treatment - in the specialist centers and staff and producing the peanut to a sufficiently high standard."
The study researchers agreed that no one should try this without supervision from a medical professional and that further studies need to be conducted before the treatment can be practiced freely and safely.
Barry Kay, from the department of allergy and clinical immunology at Imperial College London, told BBC News another concern is people who experience positive results in the trial and feel too comfortable with eating peanuts.
"The real issues that still remain include how long the results will last, and whether the positive effects might lead affected individuals to have a false sense of security," he said. "Another issue to address is whether there will be long term side-effects of repeated peanut exposure even where full allergic reaction does not occur, such as inflammation of the esophagus.
"So, this study shows encouraging results that add to the current literature, but more studies are needed to pin down these issues before the current advice to peanut allergy sufferers, which is to avoid eating peanuts, is changed."
