Study starts small to build peanut tolerance

William Atkins
Monday, 16 March 2009 18:05

Science - Health

According to U.S. researchers, if peanut-allergic children are introduced to peanuts very, very gradually some of them will eventually build up a tolerance to the peanut-buttery legume.


American immunologist Wesley Burks (Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina), who is also a pediatric allergist, and fellow colleagues from Duke University and the Arkansas Children ‘s Hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas, studied 33 children (five years of age, on average, at the start of the study) with allergies to peanuts.

The peanut, scientifically called Arachis hypogaea, is a species within the legume famlly of Fabaceae.

They are native to Central America, South America, and Mexico in North America. Other names for the common peanut is goobers, jack nuts, earthnuts, pindas, and other such titles.

The U.S. researches strictly controlled the amount that each child received.

In fact, less than one-thousandth of one peanut was allowed to be consumed each day at the start of the study.

The Burks team measured out a specific amount of peanut powder each day so parents could sprinkle it onto their children’s food. The scientists increased the amount each day on a microscopic (very tiny) level.

They found that many, but not all, of the children studied were able to become tolerant to peanuts.

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