Peanut Allergy Cure

I have a few friends whose children live with peanut allergies of varying degrees...some quite severe and some slight. No matter how intense the allergy and risk is, my friends need to be diligent not only with what their children eat but also ensuring their environments are safe. This is a time-consuming and tiring task. But there is now new hope that their children's allergies may be cured one day!

A new study is being conducted by doctors at Duke University Medical Center and Arkansas Children's Hospital that is giving hope to millions of families. One family has seen amazing results over the last few years.

"A few years ago, 6-year-old Justin Bernard couldn't touch, let alone eat, a peanut butter snack, reports CBS News correspondent Bianca Solorzano.

'A peanut allergy is a potentially fatal allergy,' said his mother, Meredith Bernard. 'With just a very small bite, it was nerve racking.'

But that all changed after Justin's mother enrolled him in the study. Over several years, doctors fed Justin trace amounts every day of the very food that made him sick. Slowly, his body built up an immunity to peanuts and now they are part of his regular diet, Solorzano reports."

If you're wondering how these great results have been reached, it went something like this: the children were given slowly increasing doses of a specially prepared peanut flour until they had a reaction. Then each child went home with a daily dose just under that reactive amount, usually equivalent to one-thousandth of a peanut.

"After eight months to 10 months of gradual dose increases, most can eat the peanut-flour equivalent of 15 peanuts daily, said Burks, who two years ago began reporting these signs of desensitization as long as children took their daily medicine."

There are other successful stories in the article as well as more details about the study and treatment. You can read the article in it's entirety at cbsnews.com. And if you know someone in my friends' shoes who has a loved one living with peanut allergies, please forward a article along to give them hope!