[HN Gopher] Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies
___________________________________________________________________
Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies
Author : peutetre
Score : 175 points
Date : 2024-07-31 03:43 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| praseodym wrote:
| In The Netherlands it is recommended to introduce peanut and egg
| to babies between 4 and 6 months, to reduce the chances of food
| allergy.
|
| More information (in Dutch):
| https://www.voedingscentrum.nl/nl/service/vraag-en-antwoord/...
| mikeyouse wrote:
| That's the current guidance in the US as well.
|
| https://mana.md/peanut-allergies-may-affect-your-child/
| hammock wrote:
| How have outcomes improved since the guidance?
| 01100011 wrote:
| and IIRC you need to maintain consistent exposure to the
| allergens throughout the first, idk, 18 months of life to
| have the best result. So don't just expose them once early on
| and stop.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| Yes that's part of the advice in the Netherlands as well.
| Keep giving them things that can be common allergies.
|
| My 4 year old's favourite food is shrimp and sushi... Not
| sure whether it's related to her eating those when she was
| a toddler, but it's fun to see the reactions in restaurants
| when you don't order the children's menu.
| soperj wrote:
| Australia changed their recommendations to match this years
| ago, and the incidence of allergy didn't change measurably.
| curiousgal wrote:
| lol did they measure whether people were following the
| recommendations?
| soperj wrote:
| lol yes.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _introduce peanut and egg to babies between 4 and 6 months_
|
| What goes wrong if they're exposed before that? If the mother
| eats peanuts and eggs while breast feeding, does that confer
| desensitisation?
| ecshafer wrote:
| I am not sure if you had a child or not, but you don't give
| the baby _food_ before 4 to 6 months. So its not that you
| aren 't exposing them at all, but not feeding them the food.
| theNJR wrote:
| There are powders to add to your formula / breast milk to
| introduce allergens early (we used Ready Set Food but easy
| to DIY). Kind of annoying since they often clog the nipple
| of the bottle, but we did it with my daughter who is now 20
| months and her favorite breakfast is a spoon of peanut
| butter. Sesame gives her a slight reaction still, we
| unfortunately don't eat it very often.
| ascorbic wrote:
| No, it's the opposite. The advice we were given was that it
| was very important that their first encounter with the
| allergens was to eat them, and not to allow skin contact or
| anything before that. This meant that with my youngest we had
| no peanuts in the house until she was old enough to eat solid
| food, and peanut butter was the first food she ate. It's
| still her favourite food!
| pc86 wrote:
| > we had no peanuts in the house until she was old enough
| to eat solid food
|
| That seems like overkill. I can't imagine having peanuts or
| peanut butter in the pantry is going to meaningfully affect
| a 2 month old infant.
| brnt wrote:
| Babies change fast. I can certainly imagine it. You won't
| know when exactly the flip happens, so you err on the
| safe side. Also, spread of stuff though the air and by
| hands: I thought we just spend lockdowns realising that
| crap spreads far and wide.
| robxorb wrote:
| Makes sense to me.
|
| If you're avoiding skin contact, then you might not have
| time to wipe the peanut butter mess off your hands as you
| rush to rescue your kid who's got into trouble.
| britishfetish wrote:
| I'm assuming you're not a parent, but it's a valid question!
| No food before 4 months, babies can and should subsist on
| breastmilk or formula before that.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| It's the opposite. Usually babies don't eat any food at 4
| months. They only get breastmilk or formula. The advice is to
| start early with peanutbutter and egg.
|
| In our case diary products were an issue instead of nuts. My
| daughter would get very sick from anything that had diary in
| it, even if my wife ate diary products while breastfeeding.
| But at about 1.5 years one she got over that and now at 4 she
| is completely fine drinking normal cow milk.
|
| So allergies in kids are not a permanent set in stone thing.
| They can get over some, and early exposure makes a
| difference.
| ascorbic wrote:
| My daughter took part in a large study that led to similar
| guidance being introduced in the UK. The was randomised into
| the early introduction group, which meant that she had to eat
| peanut, egg, cow's milk, fish, wheat and sesame on a regular
| schedule when she was a baby. It was interesting - though lots
| of work, and when she was old enough to understand why she was
| going up to London for the follow-up tests, she was very proud
| of her role as "scientist". It was very satisfying when the
| results were published many years later, proving the
| hypothesis.
|
| https://www.food.gov.uk/research/food-allergy-and-intoleranc...
| soperj wrote:
| > Overall, food allergy was lower in the group introduced to
| allergenic foods early but the difference was not
| statistically significant.
|
| How is that proving the hypothesis?
| hammock wrote:
| Where does the peanut and egg allergy come from? My
| understanding is that peanut oil and egg albumin are
| ingredients in many common medicines given early to infants..
| is there any chance that could be contributing?
| User23 wrote:
| It does make you wonder if we shouldn't vaccinate until
| exposing the children to solid foods in ordinary healthy
| cases. The mother's antibodies from her milk do good work.
|
| There are other commenters warning about skin exposure before
| dietary exposure. If that's true then it would make sense.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| I always think about the low incidence of peanut allergies in
| developing countries and wonder if the mother's diet during
| pregnancy has an effect on allergies in children? Has this been
| researched? Because instead of introducing peanuts and eggs to
| babies, introducing it to mothers is almost a no brainer.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| Only if mom isn't allergic.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| It most likely has to do with how bored our immune systems are.
|
| We evolved to be constantly dirty, and we live in an extremely
| clean society. When your immune system has a lot to fight, it
| doesn't worry to much about dumb shit like pollen and peanuts.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Clean vs. dirty isn't even the right way to think about it.
| We used to be immersed in an environment full of life, and
| now we live in mostly sterile environments free of life
| except for maybe some of the first wave colonizer specialist
| microorganisms. You are filled and covered with life that
| isn't from your own genes, and that microbiome is now mostly
| disconnected from the biosphere.
|
| I get some weird skin issues sometimes which are almost
| magically fixed if I visit a natural body of water... it's
| clearly an issue of my immune system interacting unfavorably
| with a microbiome which is out of whack.
| supertofu wrote:
| How fascinating. This reminds me that my autoimmune
| condition went into a brief and mysterious remission two
| summers ago, when I spent most weekends swimming in creeks.
| I will have to see if increased creek swimming this summer
| will help my autoimmune symptoms...
| nytesky wrote:
| Yeah getting hooked up with some bugs from the creek
| keeps your immune system occupied.
|
| Hookworms are another option; maybe two generations ago
| kids regularly walked barefoot in grass and was pretty
| common.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helminthic_therapy
| jdougan wrote:
| I hope it works. I can think of far more unpleasant
| treatments. Let us know the results!
| kristianp wrote:
| Just curious, is it the ocean, or a fresh water body that
| helps?
| colechristensen wrote:
| A small Minnesota lake, just walking on the beach and
| taking a little dip.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| About 20 years a doctor told me that this was a theory that
| wasn't widely accepted YET, but it deserved to be taken
| seriously. Now it's much more mainstream.
| viraptor wrote:
| It's mainstream, but has it actually been confirmed in some
| way beyond "it makes sense"? I've never seen a paper trying
| to test it in some way. (Would love to know if it's out
| there)
| AlbertCory wrote:
| idk. I was about to say that children from farms have
| fewer allergies, but I can't actually back that up.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| How do you see reactivity to house dust, air pollution, stuff
| like asbestos and adjacent construction materials etc. ? Then
| I'd assume the living ecosystem also shifted from mostly open
| air to indoor insects, i.e. "life finds a way"
|
| We sure aren't exposed to the same things as 4 centuries ago,
| but I can't imagine we're living a what anyone would call a
| "clean" environment.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Those are not microorganisms, and don't necessarily trigger
| your immune system in the same way.
| jnwatson wrote:
| Dust allergies are extremely common these days but you
| can't have an (IgE mediated) allergy to asbestos or smog.
| Generally the immune system reacts to biological
| substances.
|
| We're vastly more sterile from a germ perspective. The term
| "hygiene hypothesis" is apt.
| autoexec wrote:
| We're a very different kind of dirty. We've got
| microplastics in our organs, and pesticides, PFAS, and
| other pollutants in our blood.
|
| People in the olden days got their hands dirty chopping
| down trees and building solid wood tables while today we
| keep our hands clean by buying flat-pack furniture that
| out-gasses formaldehyde into our homes and our lungs.
|
| We're much dirtier than the people were a long time ago,
| only it's mostly on the inside. The filth in our bodies
| doesn't wash off with soap.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _We evolved to be constantly dirty_
|
| And infested with worms. Most allergies are caused by the
| antibody we evolved to fight worms (and venom) [1].
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5010491/
| ein0p wrote:
| This checks out. After moving to a state with a lot of
| greenery I developed a rather severe allergy to grass and
| pollen. Literally the entire face would get swollen and
| stuffy for several months in any given year. Not life
| threatening, thankfully, but very unpleasant. It went away
| within a year after I started mowing my own lawn and working
| in the garden without gloves.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| The immune system doesn't know how to rest. It must always
| fight _something_.
|
| So if it runs out of intruders to fight, it will attack the
| body itself.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| No link because I'm on mobile, but I remember reading about how
| peanut allergy in Israel is nearly non-existent. This is
| notable because:
|
| 1) Israelis come from all over the world, and the incidence of
| peanut allergies are lower in, say, Sephardic Jews living in
| Israel compared to Sephardic Jews living in Spain.
|
| 2) a very popular snack there for kids(but also adults) are
| these peanut butter corn-puffs called "Bambas"(like, literally
| 25% of the snack market is this one snack)
| type_enthusiast wrote:
| Strictly speaking, if all babies eat peanuts, you'll get to
| "nearly non-existent" peanut allergy one way or another. But
| you need better data than that to conclude that the change
| comes from allergy prevention, rather than... allergy
| "removal".
|
| Edit: I guess I was just trying to say "surprising data needs
| detail." I should have just said that, instead of making
| light of how dangerous allergies are. Downvotes deserved,
| lesson learned.
| Vecr wrote:
| You think Israel could cover something like that up?
| makeitdouble wrote:
| I don't think parent is hinting at a conspiracy, and more
| at "natural" selection based on omnipresence of peanuts.
|
| With no knowledge about how i goes for babies, the
| question would be how a 2~3 month allergic kid [0] would
| react to peanuts, including when not directly ingested.
| If it had adverse effects it would go along the line of
| what parent is describing.
|
| [0] can kids that age already be allergic to peanuts ?
| marcosdumay wrote:
| So, at the end of a long thread full of information that
| discards genetics, your explanation for it is...
| genetics.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| I took it as a warning about potential misinterpretation
| of causes and effects, and in particular the difficulty
| to assign a single cause to the near absence of allergy
| in a population.
|
| Allergies are a subject I need to know a lot more about,
| so sadly at this point I don't have an explanation for
| anything.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Yet you are the one insisting on a single cause.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Having some babies get hit at early age by allergies
| doesn't exclude any other mechanism running in parallel,
| including other babies adapting their immune system, or
| even families moving out of the country for health
| reason.
|
| I don't see how any of what I said is either insistant or
| limiting to a single cause.
| type_enthusiast wrote:
| I was not hinting at any conspiracy, and my comment
| wasn't directed toward Israel in particular (knowing
| nothing about the study that the top-level comment
| alluded to).
|
| I was facetiously pointing out that a population where
| everyone eats peanuts at a young age is likely to be
| allergy-free if only due to the fact that those with
| peanut allergies would die, and therefore would no longer
| be allergic to peanuts. A naive analysis of the data
| could lead to a conclusion that eating peanuts at a young
| age causes a favorable change in allergy outcomes later
| in life.
| swores wrote:
| For the record, I don't agree with your edit saying that
| your original comment deserved the downvotes it got. I'm
| not sure if people just completely missed the point you
| were making, or if, as I think likely, the current
| political climate around Israel/Palestine led to a few
| pro-Israel people wrongly assuming you were being anti-
| Israeli, but either way I'm glad you contributed and were
| able to clarify what you meant.
| type_enthusiast wrote:
| No, I didn't mean to imply anything like that. I guess I
| was just trying to say "surprising data needs detail." I
| should have just said that, instead of making light of
| how dangerous allergies are. Downvotes deserved, lesson
| learned.
| LegitShady wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamba_(snack)#Peanut_allergy
|
| You can click on the footnotes for sources.
| type_enthusiast wrote:
| Thanks! That thread leads to LEAP (Learning Early About
| Peanut allergy) which is a study that seems to have done
| a pretty good job of demonstrating that peanut exposure
| is in fact prophylactic against later allergy (as
| measured by a skin test). The data is pretty thorough:
| https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1414850
|
| Notably,
|
| > No deaths occurred in the study.
|
| so it's not a "naive analysis" of the kind that I
| facetiously alluded to. I didn't mean to imply that I
| believed naivete was a a factor... I was just pointing
| out that the top-level comment of "I heard {country}
| doesn't have any peanut allergy, and they eat peanuts
| from a young age" (without any further detail) was
| illustrative of a particularly insidious fallacy.
| LegitShady wrote:
| Ya I get it - I was just pointing you to sources. It made
| some waves back in the day to the point where its become
| sort of an allergy meme but it was a real study.
|
| apparently there was a follow up study called LEAP-ON
| where some of the subjects who had eaten bamba in the
| LEAP study were then asked to abstain from peanuts from
| age 5 to 6 and their tolerance to peanuts was then
| tested, and the results showed that infant peanut
| exposure reduced allergy levels even if they abstained
| later (you don't have to keep eating them, at least not
| within the time envelopes of the study).
|
| Also another study that measured the different peanut
| allergens in bamba and compared it to peanut flour that
| concluded allergen levels were lower and more uniform in
| bamba making it useful for this purpose.
|
| truthfully I don't need an excuse to eat bamba. If you
| like peanut butter its basically peanut cheatos (without
| the cheese) and is amazing, even though its super
| processed and definitely not healthy to eat compared to
| real food.
| throwup238 wrote:
| From _Epidemiology of anaphylaxis in Europe_ [1]:
|
| > Case fatality rates were noted in three studies at
| 0.000002%, 0.00009%, and 0.0001%.
|
| Fatal allergic reactions are so rare as to be completely
| irrelevant as a cause of death. Most of them are drug
| induced and most of those occur in hospitals when someone
| has an allergic reaction to an intravenous drug, not
| something they eat [2]. They're unlikely to be a
| significant driver of any evolutionary adaptation.
|
| [1]
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/all.12272
|
| [2] https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S009167491
| 40119...
| nytesky wrote:
| I am kinda of curious about populations where peanuts aren't
| common at all. I certainly didn't have many fancy nuts (i know
| peanuts aren't nuts) until well into adulthood. Why were there
| not wide spread peanut allergies among migratory populations?
| ilickpoolalgae wrote:
| Allergies are weird and our understanding of them is very
| incomplete. My son has/had a peanut allergy (very successful
| oral immunotherapy, knock on wood) and I ended up doing a lot
| of research. One study that is particular interesting is this
| one: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26728850/
|
| It shows that east asian children, who very rarely have nut
| allergies in their home countries, develop nut allergies at a
| higher rate than non-asian children when born in Australia
| while east asian children who immigrate to Australia after
| their early infancy continue to maintain very low rates of nut
| allergies.
| goldieboi wrote:
| This is what our allergist said. Living in Australia wife and
| I are both asian both eat peanuts. No peanut allergies in
| either families. Wife ate peanuts while pregnant but son has
| peanut allergy.
| rconti wrote:
| What's the implication here? That exposure to peanuts in
| utero might not help avoid peanut allergies after birth?
| (I'm not sure what the literature on that says)
|
| Or that there's something unusual about simply being in
| Australia as an infant that causes peanut sensitivity?
|
| Or that infants in Australia have less exposure to nuts?
| jimcsharp wrote:
| I read at one point that my oral allergy syndrome, my
| mild reaction to apples and other fruits, tends to be
| correlated with hay fever. It doesn't seem unreasonable
| for something similar to be afoot with peanuts.
| timtyrrell wrote:
| I am the parent of twins. Their mother ate multitudes of peanut
| M&M's and similar items when pregnant. One twin has zero peanut
| allergies, the other one has deadly allergies and we are at the
| ER at least once a year from food contamination.
| femto wrote:
| On the assumption that such allergies have a genetic
| component, presumably the twins aren't identical?
| swores wrote:
| It's also possible for things which do have genetic
| components to _also_ have environmental triggers, so its
| not impossible that, for example, identical twins who
| happened to get different levels of exposure to peanuts in
| their first year of life based on random luck of which
| family member ate peanuts near them at which times, or
| something like that, could lead to different outcomes even
| if genetics were the reason that both twins were at risk of
| developing such an allergy.
| grecy wrote:
| > _low incidence of peanut allergies in developing countries_
|
| I know this sounds extremely insensitive, but I genuinely think
| the answer is simply that the vulnerable die.
|
| I spent 3 years moving through 35 different African countries
| and 2 years through Latin America.
|
| I honestly believe it is simply the harsh reality of life that
| many more infants and young children die than in developed
| countries.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| Maybe the children die without anybody diagnosing allergies?
| harimau777 wrote:
| Is it possible that in developing nations having more limited
| dietary options and/or the risk of allergic reaction makes a
| child less likely to survive and therefore makes it appear that
| allergies are less common?
|
| This is just speculation, I don't know of any evidence one way
| or the other.
| lupusreal wrote:
| I have a suspicious that _apparent_ elevated rates of allergies
| are caused by overzealous preemptive testing. The tests are
| very sensitive and trigger for people that have only slight
| allergies which, in the past or in developing countries, could
| have been simply unknown and naturally diminished with
| subsequent exposure.
| trueismywork wrote:
| Indian kids are fed peanuts as early as possible
| eskibars wrote:
| Our son is very allergic to peanuts and less so to cashew, and
| sesame. We went through oral immunotherapy and it's been
| absolutely life changing. He used to need an epi pen in case of
| chance encounter, but now he eats 2 whole peanut m&ms every day
| to keep his dosage up. It's been difficult finding an allergist
| in Germany that's willing to accept this and move forward
|
| Obviously everyone's mileage will vary, but I'm happy to see this
| treatment being more widely adopted
| marcod wrote:
| Sorry for being nosy, but did you do oral immunotherapy with or
| without professional support?
| eskibars wrote:
| With. First they did a blood test (instead of a scratch test)
| to identify possible allergy levels. Then the allergist had
| us come into the office to take e.g. a few micrograms of
| peanut powder and watch him for reactions. Then we maintained
| the dose at home every day for the next couple weeks, taking
| zyrtec with it to avoid hives, etc. Then we'd go back in, try
| doubling the dose as a challenge. If he had a bad reaction,
| we stayed on the same dose another few weeks, and if not, it
| became the new standard level. Rinse and repeat for about a
| year until we got to 2 peanuts, 1 cashew, and 1/4 tsp of
| tahini, which we maintained now for the past ~1.5y. We're due
| for another blood test and challenge here soon, as the
| allergist suggested there's a small chance that the
| immunotherapy could result in the allergies essentially
| receding
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| I AM NOT A DOCTOR OR OTHER HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONAL
|
| I looked into oral immunotherapy for tree nut allergies.
| There's a paper from 2022:
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/all.15212
|
| They did it in a few stages:
|
| 1. First three days: test the child with increasing amounts
| of cashew protein, until the child has a reaction. Use the
| amount ingested for that reaction, to determine the single
| highest tolerated dose (SHTD = the maximal amount of cashew
| protein each patient could tolerate).
|
| 2. Next 24 days: the child ingests the SHTD daily.
|
| 3. After that: every month, the dose was increased (I think
| at an in-person visit), and taken at home for the next 30
| days.
|
| For #1, I looked at the amounts of protein they gave the
| child. Table S2 (in one of the supporting documents) shows
| how much they gave on days 1, 2 and 3. Of course they stopped
| increasing once the child had a reaction. If you convert the
| amounts of protein into equivalent numbers of whole cashews,
| then you get:
|
| - day 1: start with 1/1800th of a small cashew, increasing up
| to a fifth of a small cashew.
|
| - day 2: 1/5th small cashew, up to 2 small cashews
|
| - day 3: 2 small cashews, up to 22 small cashews
|
| 22 small cashews is about equivalent to what they want to
| achieve by the end of the therapy, i.e. if you don't have a
| reaction after eating that many, you won't have a reaction to
| a greater quantity.
|
| It seems a bit hard to DIY it, because:
|
| - The first three days requires very small amounts of cashew
| protein. At home we don't have either (i) isolated cashew
| protein, or (ii) tools to measure such small amounts
| (starting with 0.1mg cashew protein, or 0.5mg cashew).
|
| - For the first three days, we'd need to be very vigilant to
| watch out for a reaction. I don't know whether, in a
| supervised setting, they'd observe or measure other factors
| than just an apparent reaction, to make sure the procedure is
| safe.
|
| I AM NOT A DOCTOR OR OTHER HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONAL
| spike021 wrote:
| For curiosity sake, curious if the tree nut allergy here
| was typical reactions (hives, nose, etc.)?
|
| I have a tree nut "allergy" but doctors always call it more
| of a "hypersensitivity" because my reactions are usually
| involving terrible stomach cramps and pain accompanied
| occasionally by swollen throat (more so for almonds than
| cashews).
|
| I've wondered if it's worth trying to do this myself.
| sbelskie wrote:
| Sounds like Oral Allergy Syndrome. I also have it with
| almonds and stone fruits.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| Why wouldn't you see the doctor? Cost? Not covered by
| insurance?
| spike021 wrote:
| I have in the past but they weren't much of a help.
| Allergy scratch test results didn't correlate at all.
|
| They referred me to a throat doctor to make sure it
| wasn't anything in my digestive system. So ended up doing
| an endoscopy. No notable findings there either.
|
| So never been given any kind of ideas of things to try
| other than keeping a food journal, which has been useless
| to me.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| Sudden loss of appetite, followed soon by nausea, and
| then vomiting.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _day 1: start with 1 /1800th of a small cashew,
| increasing up to a fifth of a small cashew_
|
| do you mean, if there is no reaction to 1/1800th within
| minutes(?) then try 1/900th, lather rinse repeat?
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| Correct. The specifics are in the second page of this
| doc: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/downloadSuppl
| ement?do...
|
| The intervals start at 10 minutes (start of day 1) and go
| to 90 minutes (start of day 3).
|
| The dosage increments (in mg of cashew protein) start at
| 5x, but are mostly 1.5x or 2x.
| WhitneyLand wrote:
| Ok I'll bite - Wouldn't have guessed it necessary to
| bookend a comment with all caps disclaimers, yet it's
| happening, so I'm going to guess you have an interesting or
| cautionary anecdote around it we can possibly learn from?
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| Nope. Just being cautious!
| gobins wrote:
| Wow that is really good to hear. I am on immunotherapy for a
| different type of allergy and can't stop talking about its
| effectiveness. It has been life changing.
| sva_ wrote:
| I did a whole immunization against dust mites and I feel like
| it didn't work at all. q.q
|
| I've been wondering if there's something else causing me to
| be allergic to them, like something I eat or so, idk. But
| I'll have to get tested again
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| Is this effective and available for milder chronic hayfever and
| runny,partially blocked nose, generally speaking?
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| I've heard that consuming honey from your local variety of
| bees can help - but the evidence base isn't great [1]
|
| [1] https://www.honeyshoney.co.uk/blogs/news/local-honey-and-
| hay...
| simonswords82 wrote:
| This is nonsense. It doesn't work.
| RamblingCTO wrote:
| Yes it is: https://www.aok.de/pk/magazin/koerper-psyche/haut-
| und-allerg...
|
| I heard that you can choose between pills every day for a
| prolonged period OR three injections over a year. Not sure
| how accurate this is, but every "allergologe" provides this
| in Germany.
| ad700x wrote:
| I visited my local allergist for this (in the USA). Basically
| the treatments available to me were either shots or eyedrops.
| The shots required visiting the office almost daily, then
| weekly, then less frequently. The eyedrops can be self
| administered. I was told both treatment options are not
| permanent and need to be basically done in perpetuity. The
| cost was a couple thousand dollars per year (basically no
| insurance coverage).
|
| Seems like the treatment options are evolving pretty rapidly
| and these options aren't available everywhere. Or this is
| what I was told.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Yes, my girlfriend gets allergy exposure shots for cat
| dander. It's stupid expensive and time consuming. You will
| meet your insurance deductible for several years. The outcome
| is only somewhat good as well.
| ugh123 wrote:
| > It's been difficult finding an allergist in Germany that's
| willing to accept this and move forward
|
| What are they saying? They don't believe in oral immunotherapy?
| mmikeff wrote:
| Our daughter too, she's been on a maintenance dose equivalent
| to two peanuts, once a week. It's been life changing. She's had
| several trips to A&E before the treatment but after a few years
| she was able to tolerate a dose equivalent to ten peanuts
| (although that still made her quite nauseous).
| dminor wrote:
| I asked our allergist about oral immunotherapy for my daughter
| and he cited a study that found that avoidance was more
| effective in preventing severe reactions.
| ggm wrote:
| Treatment for adults would be nice, but I take solace from the
| future. At least more kids won't need to grow up with an extreme
| concern. Meantime grown-ups keep carrying the epipen.
| bb123 wrote:
| It is not well known but this also works for adults too. I'm 28
| and recently completed oral immunotherapy therapy for my
| extremely severe peanut allergy. I used to go anaphylactic from
| single milligram exposure and now I'm eating multiple peanuts a
| day. As an adult you have to go slower and be more careful but
| absolutely can be done and is life changing.
| ggm wrote:
| Weblinks would be very interesting. Congratulations for
| getting to a safer place.
|
| This is the Australian position:
| https://www.allergy.org.au/hp/papers/ascia-oral-
| immunotherap...
| grecy wrote:
| When I worked at a wilderness summer camp I had a kid in my group
| that was deathly allergic to peanuts, so weeks before we had to
| rid the camp of them.
|
| He was about 13, and said when he was little they did that
| scratch allergy test on his arm and he was in a coma for six
| months. He carried and Epipen around but told me not to stress.
| If someone ate a snickers then touched a door knob, and he
| touched it days later he would be dead on the ground before I had
| the cap off the pen anyway.
|
| Cool kid, he just took it in stride.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Sounds like obvious bullshit. His story I mean, not yours. If
| his allergy were as bad as he claimed he would be a bubble boy
| or dead. It's not as if all of society around him could be
| cleansed of peanut residue as the camp supposedly was. If he
| went anywhere public without a bubble then by his account he'd
| be dead.
| grecy wrote:
| He was extremely careful not to touch much, and after meeting
| his parents they lived in constant terror
| viraptor wrote:
| Slight tangent: How do people with an allergy that severe find
| out they have an allergy? For example people who know even
| someone's breath after eating peanuts would threaten their
| lives. Accidental exposures are likely much worse than that, so
| how do you end up learning about this severity without dying in
| the first place? Just running a full allergy test after an
| unexplained exposure to traces of "something", or... ?
| ljf wrote:
| For my son, it was another child kissing him on the head when
| my child was about 6 months old, the child had eaten peanut
| butter for breakfast. His face started to swell, and my wife
| ran him to a local GP - and with wiping down and plenty of
| breast milk he was OK. A month or two later he was at a
| toddler party and rolled in a little hummus - and the same
| thing happened. We were already on the list for an allergy
| appointment, but they wouldn't see him until he was 18 months
| old - so we found a private hospital who would see him.
|
| ---
|
| In terms of 'cause' - we don't know, one or two other
| children of my sons generation in our family have food
| allergies, and an older brother thought he was allergic to
| fish though never tested.
|
| We noticed the reaction after he had a round of antibiotics
| after he had infected eczema, quickly followed by my wife
| needing antibiotics which we are sure got to him through her
| milk, as he'd groan after breast feeding - before that we had
| plenty of nuts, sesame, milk and eggs in the house, without
| noticing an issue for him. But that is just a pet theory.
| Andaith wrote:
| Here's the participating hospitals: * The Royal
| Children's Hospital in Victoria * Perth Children's Hospital
| * Fiona Stanley Hospital in Western Australia * Queensland
| Children's Hospital * Women's and Children's Health Network
| in South Australia * Sydney Children's Hospital, Randwick
| * The Children's Hospital at Westmead * John Hunter
| Children's Hospital * Campbelltown Hospital * Royal
| Prince Alfred Hospital in NSW
|
| From this article, which has a bit more info:
| https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-31/peanut-allergy-nation...
| ahstilde wrote:
| Immunotherapy works. I run a company (YC w21) that wants to
| eliminate allergies forever. It's ancient medicine to manage
| symptoms with antihistamines when we can remove the root cause
| completely.
|
| Right now, we fix cat, dog, pet, pollen, and dust allergies. In a
| few years, we'll be doing nuts.
|
| Our launch HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26227807
|
| company: https://www.wyndly.com/
|
| book a visit with a doc: https://www.wyndly.com/products/allergy-
| doctor-consult-onlin...
|
| Or just start with an allergy test:
| https://www.wyndly.com/products/at-home-allergy-test
|
| US Only right now. If you can help us expand into your country,
| contact me at aakash@wyndly.com
| snowpid wrote:
| Can you show us any peer reviewed paper ?
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| I tried searching pubmed but turns out there are a lot of
| Mana Shahs working in bio research and pharma.
|
| The big question for me is whether this is a permanent fix or
| if you have to keep taking their tablets (at $99-ish a month,
| it looks like?)
|
| Unfortunately this doesn't look to be covered by my insurance
| as the at-home test is not administered by a doctor.
| snowpid wrote:
| My insurance in Germany only accepts peer reviewed stuff
| anyway so I keep waiting.
| helloworld42024 wrote:
| This is a brilliant idea. The product and system also look
| extremely well put together.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| How is this different or better compared to diagnostics and
| treatments available from allergists? At least one office in my
| area says they do immunotherapy and desensitization.
| a_c wrote:
| In the book Immune by Philipp Detter, creator or YouTube channel
| Kurzgesagt, it was mentioned that parasite might been a link in
| developing allergy (or was it autoimmune disease, can't remember
| exactly)
| bb123 wrote:
| It is not well known but this also works for adults too. I'm 28
| and recently completed oral immunotherapy therapy for my
| extremely severe peanut allergy. I used to go anaphylactic from
| single milligram exposure and now I'm eating multiple peanuts a
| day. As an adult you have to go slower and be more careful but
| absolutely can be done and is life changing.
| tomcam wrote:
| What a relief! Thank you for sharing.
| ljf wrote:
| Wonderful to hear - my son took part in a milk desensitisation,
| which has been really successful - but he also has a good few
| other food allergies. We haven't yet been able to get him onto
| other trials, so I was worried that if we didn't do it while he
| was young, we'd miss the 'window'.
|
| Brilliant to hear it still works well in adulthood - if we can
| get peanuts, sesame and egg under control - so that he can eat
| 'May Contain' food, that would be a huge change for him.
| rmccue wrote:
| How long did your therapy take to get to this point?
| bb123 wrote:
| About a year overall but I started to have meaningful
| protection after about 6 months. There is no one in the UK
| currently offering it for adults so I had to travel to a
| specialist clinic Atlanta a few times.
| trueismywork wrote:
| Thus has been the norm in Indian culture for centuries now.
| agp2572 wrote:
| There is a theory that if your body is not exposed to enough good
| bacteria and other pathogens then it will build up an army to
| fight out non important things like pollen and peanuts. I would
| recommend giving kids probiotics and also not keeping environment
| so clean with wipes and excessive hand washing that they never
| get exposed to good and some bad germs.
| amelius wrote:
| Can someone confirm that theory and provide evidence?
| rajup wrote:
| There are plenty of studies linked here:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis
| hwbehrens wrote:
| This correlation is often referred to as the 'hygiene
| hypothesis' by researchers. The underlying cause is still
| being understood; you can find an article comparing two
| theories here [0].
|
| [0]: https://www.nature.com/articles/nri35095579
| xeromal wrote:
| The grow up eating dirt hypothesis.
| odiroot wrote:
| Hey, maybe at some point we can get back our free peanuts on
| flights!
| cwoolfe wrote:
| Nuts are a very good and healthy natural snack; it's a shame they
| are banned by most daycares and schools now. It would be great if
| this became so common they could be allowed again. Without
| nuts...what do we have instead? Chips. granola-bars. These are
| highly processed foods that have other issues. Raisins or apples
| maybe? but they are mostly sugar. None of these options have
| healthy fat & protein like nuts do. What healthy snacks do you
| feed your children?
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Yep, the banning of normal foods from these spaces is a
| detriment to everyone else. I feel it is a bit unfair, in that
| everyone else has to "subsidize" the few rare people with
| allergies. Shouldn't the burden be on them to avoid public
| spaces if they're that sensitive?
| rospaya wrote:
| > Shouldn't the burden be on them to avoid public spaces if
| they're that sensitive?
|
| Depends how emphatic you are to your fellow human being.
| Peanuts aren't as important in most people's lives as actual
| people.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| However since we're currently seeing that allergies are
| treated by exposure, by removing these from canteens we are
| strengthening everyone's allergies for the sake of the few.
| In essence these few unlucky ones, including those who
| don't want to take the risk, are making us all more ill in
| the long run.
| Zach_the_Lizard wrote:
| On the other hand, avoiding peanut exposure can cause an
| increase in allergies, so there's a feedback loop at play.
|
| The children who now have allergies, but wouldn't with past
| exposure levels, are more inconvenienced than the kid who
| can't eat a peanut butter sandwich at school.
|
| Attempting to make life better for all has unexpected
| twists and turns
| t0mas88 wrote:
| Oh wow, are nuts banned from US schools? Never heard of that in
| NL or UK. The only food requests we get from daycare and
| primary school are to provide healthy snacks for birthday
| celebrations instead of sugary. And that's a friendly request
| not a rule.
| purpleblue wrote:
| We introduced our child to peanuts relatively early as well.
| Peanuts, macadamia nuts, cashews, hazelnuts, almonds, eggs,
| wheat/gluten, you name it, we gave it to him.
|
| Turns out he is anaphylactically allergic to walnuts and pecans.
| It took us a long time to figure out what was going on because we
| thought he was fine with nuts. So exposing kids to peanuts isn't
| the panacea that they think it is.
|
| At this point I'm convinced that the adjuvants in vaccines are
| the cause of food allergies. Adjuvants are designed to promote a
| strong immune response from the body and guess what? That's
| exactly what a food allergy is, an overreaction to the antigens
| found on particular foods. My son took every single vaccine,
| including COVID plus booster, but after reading on up this and
| figuring out his severe allergy, I'm convinced this is the
| problem.
|
| The Amish community, which doesn't vaccinate, has almost no food
| allergies at all and I think if someone does a proper study, I
| will bet that the adjuvants used to trigger a strong response
| such that vaccines work also have unintended side effects which
| is food allergies.
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