Great News! Researchers have found a way to turn off the immune system's reaction to peanuts - in mice. Even better news is that this research could also help unravel autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis, since their reactions, according to scientists, are similar to those of food allergies. Researchers now need to make that leap from mice to humans, but it is a start.
A person develops food allergies after their body becomes sensitive to a particular protein from food - whatever food their body deems dangerous. This group of researchers has found a way to wrap a tiny protein (in this case peanut protein) with a white blood cell. Then inject it into a peanut allergic mouse. This "tricks" the immune system into interpreting that the peanut is safe.
“The key concept here is that we are supposed to be able to eat foods,” Bryce said. “Allergies to peanuts and other foods occur when the immune system goes wrong. We’ve been trying to understand how the immune system tells the difference between what it should and should not respond to.”
~ Paul J. Bryce, an assistant professor of medicine at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, whose study was published in the Journal of Immunology.
As long as we are talking about tricks - I'm still missing any researcher comments on why food allergies have skyrocketed in the first place. Wouldn't it be helpful to study this, as well? To find the root cause of something with such a clear mass onset? I'm very excited about this research, but also hope that the "why" will be discovered soon. Tell me your thoughts.
Elisabeth Veltman, The Tender Foodie