New Therapy Offers Promising Solution to Childhood Peanut Allergies

Prior to our field trip to Cedar Point for Physics Day, one of my students who had a severe peanut allergy, came by to discuss medical precautions necessary for our day of fun.

He told me that food cooked in peanut oil, could send him to the hospital.  Trace amounts of peanuts could kill him.

I would have a difficult time living under that burden.  Life can change in an instant for any of us, but it’s usually a bunch of one-in-a-million scenarios that stack up, until some freak thing happens to somebody.  For my student, it’s more like one-in-a-hundred.  Peanuts are everywhere.  He had to be constantly vigilant.

The trip went fine.  A couple of weeks later, it was the end of the school year, so he and I had some free time and were chatting about his allergy. 

For the most part, my students were smart and mature.  I was honest with them, and occasionally said things that weren’t prudent.  I told him how difficult it would be for me  to live with the peanut allergy, and that I would probably try an exposure protocol to acclimate my immune system to peanuts.

I’d start by looking at pictures of guys with top hats and canes, until that didn’t trigger an adverse reaction.  That was a facetious Mr. Peanut reference to keep the conversation light.

After that, I might touch a peanut to my arm, and expect some swelling.  I’d do that every week or so, until there was no adverse reaction. Cautiously ratchet up the exposure until my immune system wasn’t threatened by peanuts.

I also told him that I didn’t know anything about the immune system, and he shouldn’t try an approach like this, but it’s what I would do.

It’s frustrating that all the medical community could tell a smart, otherwise healthy teenager, is that he should be aware that a common food could take his life. 

Now, this comes out:

Peanuts are known to cause one of the most severe reactions in children with food allergies. Current estimates show between 2 percent and 5 percent of school-age children in the U.S. have a peanut allergy, while food allergies among children have been shown to increase for decades.

Now, a promising new treatment that gradually introduces some children to store-bought peanut butter in a controlled medical setting could help treat peanut allergies, according to a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine Evidence.

My colleague, Canadian Dave, told me that in Canada, peanut butter had been replaced by Wowbutter in schools.  After visiting his parents in Canada, he brought me a jar of Wowbutter.  It wasn’t bad.  It wasn’t good.  It tasted kind of like a generic shortbread cookie.  A little sweet and a little familiar, but not something you’d ever crave.

I don’t know anything about having a baby and raising a child, except that it must be the scariest project anyone ever willing takes on.  It also can’t be that complicated because absolute morons manage to do it.  They may not do the best job, but the child reaches adulthood and is basically healthy.

New parents frantically try not to screw it up, so they are aware of every new best-practice they learn about.  The medical and scientific community feel obliged to provide guidance, even if they don’t have the research to support their recommendations.

In 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics, recommended against feeding any peanut product to children under 3 years old, and cautioned pregnant and lactating mothers to avoid consuming peanuts.

When the child encountered a peanut later in life, of course their immune system would consider it a completely foreign substance.

I don’t know anything about raising children, but believe it’s best not to overthink it.  People have been having kids for thousands of years.  A baby is a blank slate with an undeveloped immune system.  Try a variety of foods to calibrate the immune system.  Expect that the baby will catch every bug there is, but recovery will improve the immune system.

I maintained a Facebook account for former students.  Several years later, my allergic student said that his doctor was putting him through exposure therapy, and peanuts were no longer likely to kill him if he didn’t eat a bunch of peanuts or peanut butter.