Working Hard for a Cure

Today I'm going to talk about what kind of food allergy research scientists are doing, what they hope to find, and when they'll find a permanent cure to food allergies.

Food allergies seem as though they'll never go away! They're like a scar. Scars never go away, no matter what. But, there is one way to get rid of an allergy for good. The term for it is outgrowing. If you would like to learn more about outgrowing food allergies, you can check out my food allergy book that I put on an earlier post. But what scientists really want is a cure for food allergies, since outgrowing can only happen to some people.

There was a recent food allergy study that helped many children. What they did was scientists surveyed food allergy families. This was done during July 2013, and they figured out the following pieces of information:

• A little more than a quarter of the children—26.6%—outgrew their allergies, at an average age of 5.4 years old.    
• Children who were allergic to milk, egg, or soy were most likely to outgrow their allergies. The likelihood of outgrowing shellfish, tree nut, and peanut allergies was significantly lower.           
• The earlier a child’s first reaction, the more likely that child was to outgrow the allergy.
• Black children were less likely to outgrow their allergy than white children.
• Boys were more likely to outgrow their allergy than girls.

These doctors/scientists conclude that this data will help food allergy families in need.

Oral Immunotherapy is also something that is helping people with food allergies. Oral Immunotherapy, or O.I.T for short, is when the food allergen is administered slowly but steadily in increasing amounts into you, until you are desensitized (Desensitization means that a person can consume a small amount of a problem food without experiencing a reaction.) This analysis is helping people with peanut, walnut (tree nut), and other food allergies. The scientists's goal is to be able to do this on each of the main food allergies: dairy, peanuts, tree nuts, eggs, wheat, soy, fish, shellfish.

To learn more about a leading cure to food allergies, visit the FARE website at: 

http://www.foodallergy.org/