A cure for potentially-deadly peanut allergies is imminent, with a breakthrough that tricks the immune system into tolerance.
Scientists at Northwestern University in Chicago have found a way to safely and rapidly turn off the allergic response to food allergies in mice by attaching peanut proteins onto their white blood cells, the UK's Daily Telegraph reports.
Food allergies occur when the immune system overreacts to a particular foreign substance as if it were toxic.
Paul Bryce, assistant professor of medicine, explained that the research was aimed at tricking the immune system into thinking the nut proteins were non-threatening.
Of the reactions in the test mice, Bryce said: "Their immune systems saw the peanut protein as perfectly normal because it was already presented on the white blood cells."
The success of this treatment on the mice, which ordinarily would have gone into potentially deadly anaphylactic shock, is hoped to be transferrable to humans.
Bryce also explained that it is possible for more than one protein to be attached to white blood cells, which holds the possibility of curing other food allergies such as egg and fish.
The breakthrough study, published in the Journal of Immunology will also assist in developing research into other immune system diseases including multiple sclerosis and Type 1 diabetes.
An estimated one in 20 children suffer from food allergies in Australia (approximately six percent). In the last 10 years hospital admissions for food anaphylaxis in children aged zero to four has increased fivefold, and the prevalence of peanut allergies in young children is estimated to have doubled in the last five years.
Symptoms of food allergies range from mild swelling, hives and vomiting to more severe reactions such as difficulty breathing, loss of consciousness and even death.
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