Australian researchers solve peanut allergy mystery

Australian researchers have made a major world-first breakthrough in their investigation into how allergies can be “switched off”.

Researchers from the Murdoch Children’s Research and Telethon Kids Institutes have discovered the immunological changes that occur in children who receive successful treatment for peanut allergies.

Children were given a probiotic alongside immunotherapy doses for 18 months as part of a Melbourne trial published in 2015, and three-quarters of those who received the treatment were then able to eat peanuts.

But researchers didn’t know why the treatment worked, until now.

“The exciting piece is that we now understand how that happens,” group leader of allergy immunology research at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Professor Mimi Tang told Ross and Russel.

“There’s a complete rewriting of the way genes talk to each other.

“In someone who’s allergic what we found that its mainly a lot of chatter between allergy type genes coordinating their activities together to push forward with the allergy response, and when children are put into remission following an oral immunotherapy treatment there’s a complete dismantling of these communications and instead a new set of genes come in and a new network of tolerance-type genes.”

“We’re certainly not suggesting this is permanent or a cure of any sort but it does look as if the children that get into remission, most of them stay in remission even out to four years later.”

Press PLAY below to hear about the major allergy breakthrough