Peanut treatment lowers risk of severe allergic reactions in preschoolers

Dec 05, 2020

New Delhi, Dec 05 (ANI): A new study by researchers at the University of British Columbia and BC Children's Hospital gives hope to parents and kids who face real danger from exposure to peanuts. "There's a common misperception about peanut allergies--that it's not a serious health issue. Although the risk of a fatal reaction to peanuts is low in patients with peanut allergy, it has a major impact on the quality of life and many families feel hopeless in dealing with what can seem like an unmanageable problem," said the study's senior author Dr Edmond Chan, head of the division of pediatric allergy and immunology at UBC's faculty of medicine and clinical investigator at BC Children's Hospital Research Institute. The study, recently published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice, is the first to demonstrate that exposing children to a small, regular dose of an allergen (in this case, peanuts) in a real-world setting (outside of a clinical trial) is effective in reducing the risk of allergic reactions.