Toward a new wheat allergy treatment for children

Wheat is one of the most frequent childhood food allergies (about the 35% of children at the age of 12). A common treatment for this disease is avoiding eating wheat products, although this can result in a nutritional imbalance for children.And it is hard to avoid eating wheat products since it is present in many food products; in spite of the warnings on labels, many accidents can occur. Thus, it is important to find new treatments that induce tolerance to this food.

A collaboration between researchers from CBGP (UPM-INIA) and the Allergy Department of the Hospital Infantil Universitario Niño Jesús of Madrid was aimed at finding new treatments for this allergy.

The new treatment was administered to six children with wheat allergy. These children underwent oral immunotherapy consisting of dispensing increasing doses of wheat. Five of the studied children successfully finished the treatment after 24 days, and all the patients had tolerance to 100 grams of daily wheat after six months. Using this approach, most of these children undergoing oral immunotherapy were able to eat 100 grams of wheat bread at the end of the process. Therefore, they can eat wheat and derived products overcoming the risk of accidental ingestion.

The obtained results could be the basis for large clinical trials including more patients with the aim of assessing the therapeutic benefit of this new approach.

More information:
RODRÍGUEZ DEL RIO, P.; DÍAZ-PERALES, A.; SÁNCHEZ-GARCÍA, S.; ESCUDERO, C.; DO SANTOS, PATRICIA; CATARINO, M.; IBAÑEZ, M. D. "Oral Immunotherapy in Children With IgE-Mediated Wheat Allergy: Outcome and Molecular Changes". Journal of Investigational Allergology and Clinical Immunology, 24 (4):240-248; 2014.

Provided by Universidad Politécnica de Madrid