(MEDICAL NEWS) – Peanut allergies are hard to treat and can cause fatal or near-fatal anaphylactic reactions. People usually don't outgrow peanut allergy, requiring lifelong scrutiny of food labels to avoid even small traces of peanut. A first-of-its-kind clinical trial at Boston Children's Hospital now finds that fecal microbiota transplants (FMT) from healthy, non-allergic donors allow some severely allergic young adults to consume small amounts of peanut safely.
Rima Rachid, MD, lead investigator and co-director of the Food Allergy Program at Boston Children's, will present the results February 26 at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI) annual meeting, during a morning symposium on Food Allergy.
The FMT treatment was derived from stool samples provided by healthy, non-allergic donors and delivered in frozen capsules. It enabled some study participants -; who initially had allergic reactions to less than half a peanut -; to consume more than two peanuts before reacting, the study found. That amount may be enough to eliminate concern about traces of peanut in foods, says Rachid.
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