Reaction Paper

Presented to

MRS. JAMELAH AMPUAN - LADIAS

College of Arts and Social Sciences

Mindanao State University - Buug Campus

Datu Panas, Buug, Zamboanga Sibugay

As Partial Fulfillment

Of the Requirements for the Course

Bio 1 (Introduction to Biology)

2nd Semester, A.Y. 2014-2015

by

FARHAN D. DACULA

March 2015
Eating peanuts prevents allergy
By Jennifer Couzin-Frankel

It may sound radical, but it works: Eating peanuts slashes the chance of a peanut
allergy, at least in children at high risk of developing one, a much-anticipated study finds.
The results are likely to catapult a long-standing theory—that ingesting potential food
allergens is a way to prevent allergies—into mainstream medicine.

“This is the study,” says Rebecca Gruchalla, a specialist in allergy immunology at

the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, who wasn’t involved in it.
The data, she says, are “just mind-blowing.”

The trial, the results of which are published today in The New England Journal of
Medicineto coincide with their presentation at a major allergy meeting in Houston, Texas,
is by far the largest and longest running of its kind, with 640 children followed over 4
years. It was launched back in 2006, when both the United States and United Kingdom
recommended that parents keep peanut products away from high-risk youngsters until
they turned 3, advice families in other Western countries often followed, too. But as these
children eschewed peanut butter, doctors were increasingly uncertain whether their
recommendations were sound. Peanut allergies, which can be fatal, were soaring in the
same countries that urged avoidance: In the United States, the prevalence of peanut
allergy more than tripled between 1997 and 2008, to 1.4%. In Israel, meanwhile, where
the environment is not appreciably different from other industrialized countries, only
about 0.17% of schoolchildren were allergic. What was different there? For one, many
Israeli babies consume a wildly popular snack of peanut puffs called Bamba by the time
they’re 6 months old.

The rationale for avoidance was simple: It’s not possible to become allergic to a
food unless exposed to it, and doctors had believed that the guts and immune systems
of older children may be better able to tolerate potential allergens, making the body less
likely to react badly to new foods. But avoiding peanuts completely—or, more specifically,
the peanut protein that can trigger an allergic reaction in some people—is extraordinarily
difficult. In the United Kingdom, one study more than a decade ago suggested that many
peanut-allergic children had been slathered with diaper creams containing peanut oil in
infancy.

Gideon Lack, a professor of pediatric allergy at King’s College London, reported in

2013 that peanut protein persisted on hands and in saliva for up to 3 hours after peanuts
were eaten, suggesting that babies might be exposed through their skin to miniscule
amounts from parents or older siblings. We “really didn’t appreciate until quite recently …
how much peanut protein is in the environment,” says Hugh Sampson, a pediatric allergist
at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
 Although evidence has continued to mount, even 8 or 10 years ago avoidance was
already being called into question. So Lack and his colleagues set out to test whether
feeding babies and young children peanut products might help them learn to tolerate the
peanut protein, inhibiting an allergy. All the babies were between 4 and 11 months old
when they were enrolled, and all had either an egg allergy, severe eczema, or both—
putting them at high risk of a peanut allergy down the road. Indeed, 98 of them were
already heading in that direction: They tested positive for mild peanut sensitivity in a skin-
prick test. This meant that these babies were already churning out antibodies to the
peanut protein. Eating peanuts in the future could set off an allergic reaction.

The team divided the babies into two groups. Half were to avoid eating peanut
products until they were 5 years old. The other half received at least 6 grams of peanut
protein a week, spread across at least three meals, until they were 5 years old. Bamba
was the preferred offering, though picky eaters who rejected it got smooth peanut butter.

Around the 5th birthdays of the trial subjects came the big test. The children
consumed a larger peanut portion than they were used to in one sitting, and the results
were clear-cut. Among 530 children who had had a negative skin-prick test when they
were babies, 14% who avoided peanuts were allergic to them, compared with 2% of those
who’d been eating them. In the even higher risk group, the children who were sensitized,
35% of the peanut-avoiders were allergic versus just over 10% of the peanut eaters.

“This study really proves cause and effect,” Sampson says, adding that he
“certainly hopes” it will change clinical practice. “When someone asks me in my practice,
I will encourage them to get peanuts in the diet in the first year of life.”

As with any study, there are still a number of unanswered questions. One is
whether the allergy prevention will persist in the children if they drop their regular nutty
meals. Lack and his colleagues plan to follow them to answer this question. Another is
whether the results apply to other food allergens, too. Gruchalla sees no reason why they
wouldn’t, and early results are encouraging: An Australian study of egg exposure in 86
high-risk babies reported in 2013 that it saw hints that babies eating eggs were less likely
to become allergic. The same group, led by allergy researcher Debra Palmer at the
University of Western Australia, is now testing this in 820 infants and hopes to have
results in about a year.

Then there’s the difficult question of treatment: Can people who already have
peanut allergies be exposed, with care, to peanut protein as a way of minimizing their
reaction? Given the risks involved, researchers are treading carefully, but Sampson led
a study presented yesterday at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Allergy,
Asthma & Immunology, reporting results of a study aiming to do just that.

The 221 adult and pediatric participants were offered either a patch delivering
peanut protein through healthy skin or a placebo patch. After 1 year, those who got the
highest dose patch could tolerate 10 times as much peanut protein—about four peanuts
total—as they’d been able to when the study began. With such tolerance, allergy sufferers
might be less fearful of accidental exposure to small amounts of the nut.

Exposure treatment like this still needs more testing. But for prevention of a life-
threatening allergy, the landscape has changed. “Now,” Gruchalla says, “we have
something to do.”

Source: http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2015/02/eating-peanuts-prevents-allergy

My Reaction to This Article

As a peanut allergy person, I must first thank any researcher who tackles this issue.
However, 2 points concern me with the claims made in this study, having read the detailed
methodology.

Firstly, the protocol excluded all children who displayed any allergy symptom
beyond a very mild skin allergy reaction; therefore the media should not have widely and
incorrectly implied that the research proves 100% that giving peanuts removes the risk of
developing allergy in ALL children including those with severe reactions.

Secondly, I want to consider examining and researching the large 'elephant in the
room', as presented below:

 Developed countries showing a recent exponential rise in peanut allergies appear

to correlate with countries that also have widely replaced the traditional culture of
exclusive breast feeding with infant formula milk, example: UK, USA. (I’m not anti
formula milk, but I urge everyone to examine the hidden ingredients of formula milk
with regard to the below information…)

 Infant formula milks sometimes contain peanut oil or protein, which is usually listed
by its latin botanical name so is easily overlooked.

 Parts of Africa and Asia that are now developing increased use of the above infant
nutritional products are also showing increases in peanut allergy (quoted in this
study).

 Similar to Africa and Asia, some of those countries including the UK and USA, also
advocate giving young infants (less than 4 months age) nutritional supplement
which commonly contain peanut oil bases/proteins disguised by the Latin botanical
name (I wonder if this is the route my daughter took to getting her peanut allergy).
  Research shows infants given anything other than pure milk when <4 months of
age will have an increased risk of developing a later allergy due to their digestive
and immune systems not being mature enough to cope with these introductions
(so why do we put peanut products in their milk?!?!?!?).

 Important studies into cultural and maternal habits that might explain peanut
allergy always focus on maternal diet during breast feeding but entirely overlook
formula milk - yet typically less than 1% of mothers are still breastfeeding beyond
12 months in Western culture, and a very large majority are giving formula to young
babies, so why is formula milk being ignored? My answer is below:

 Important peanut allergy studies may have suffered compromise (eg only focusing
on breast milk to avoid any implication of formula milk) by being part-funded by
pharmaceuticals and food manufacturers who also happen to make/sell infant
formula milk and vitamin supplements.

 When studies claim that infants avoided peanut products

did they consider the ingredients in their formula milk and vitamin
supplements? No, not according to the methodologies.

This research is similar to what the old people in the Philippines did. I don’t know
if it’s being practiced nationwide but when I was young, I saw one of my childhood friends
eating a jackfruit or Artocarpus integrifolia which was being fed to him by his mother.
Many years later, I asked my mom why my friend’s mother did that and she said it was
done so that the illness that my friend suffered from will worsen and that way, they can
cure it. It confuses me up to now but then after reading this article, I realized something…

This only makes sense. You know how vaccines work? You put the bacteria in
your body (either a dead or weakened bacteria). You know how you get your body used
to cold water? You start with warm water, and slowly make it colder and colder each day.
The only way to protect yourself from something, is if you build up a defense, and how
can you build an appropriate defense when you are never attacked?