Food allergy is a major public health problem affecting nearly 10 % of children in most industrialized countries. Unfortunately, there are no effective therapies for food allergy, relegating patients to simply avoid the offending foods and treat reactions that occur on accidental exposure. Recently however, studies suggest that food immunotherapy may provide a promising new approach to food all...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW Advances in the prevention and treatment of food allergy have been published in the last few years and are placed in context using a review format. RECENT FINDINGS Preventing food allergy has been studied for years with questions of whether avoidance or exposure was a better strategy. Recent research has suggested that peanut allergy can be substantially reduced in high-risk...

Background The FAST project (Food Allergy Specific ImmunoTherapy) aims at the development of safe and effective treatment of food allergies. Classical allergen-specific immunotherapy (SIT) for treatment of food allergy using subcutaneous injections with food extracts has proven to be effective but too dangerous due to anaphylactic side-effects. FAST aims at developing a safe alternative by repl...

Food-induced anaphylaxis is the single leading cause of anaphylaxis seen in emergency departments. Consequently, a number of therapeutic strategies to treat food allergies are being pursued. Two non-allergen-specific therapies have been investigated in man: monoclonal anti-human IgE antibodies and a Chinese herbal formulation, FAHF-2. A trial with HU-901 anti-IgE was shown to raise the threshol...

Although food allergy is a major public health problem, currently there is no effective and safe treatment except to avoid the foods .But the need for new options is critical now as the number of children diagnosed with food allergies rises. Avoiding the offending allergen in the diet is the primary treatment of food allergy. Once a food to which the patient is sensitive has been identified, th...

Food allergies encompass a range of disorders ranging from being an inconvenience to even causing fatalities, mainly due to anaphylaxis. A large number of individuals are affected and this presents great health and economic implications. However as yet, apart from dietary avoidance, effective treatment strategies are practically non-existent. The immune environment related to allergen-tolerance...

OBJECTIVE Food allergies continue to be an increasingly common disorder, however, no treatment strategies are currently approved for the routine management of individuals with food allergies. Encouraging results from early open-label studies have sparked great interest in oral and sublingual immunotherapy, and thus several randomized controlled trials have recently been conducted to establish t...