Peanut allergies can be overcome by eating more peanuts

• Whereas you might think that the best way to avoid an allergy is to stay away from the allergen, a new study by researchers at the John Hopkins University has indicated that if you are worried about the recurrence of the peanut allergy that you outgrew as a child, the best way to avoid it might be eating more peanuts.
• The study, which has been published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, is based on the findings that children who outgrow peanut allergy and do not succumb to it again are the ones who eat concentrated forms of peanut products, such as peanut butter, shelled peanuts or peanut candy, at least once a month in order to maintain tolerance.
• The researchers said that although the exact mechanism by which peanut allergy may recur is not known, their study showed that children who ate concentrated forms of peanut frequently had a considerably lower chance of having a recurrence of their allergy.
• They recommend that children who eat peanut infrequently or in limited amounts should carry epinephrine injections at all times, and that they continue with annual blood tests to monitor allergy antibodies and assess the risk of recurrence, which can even lead to death in some cases.
• They also said that those children who do eat concentrated peanut products frequently carry epinephrine injections for at least one year after passing an oral food challenge, a highly accurate allergy test in which the child eats small amounts of the suspected allergen in a clinical setting and is watched carefully for symptoms.
• The researchers are now hoping that future research will help to better identify patients who are truly at risk for a peanut allergy recurrence.