Hope for sufferers after boy ‘cured’ of peanut allergy
A YOUNG boy’s life has been transformed after he was treated for a deadly peanut allergy in a groundbreaking clinical trial.
George Sawyer was diagnosed a day after his sixth birthday. His mother found him “curled up in the hallway” with swollen lips and hives. He told her he wanted to “go to sleep”.
He was rushed to hospital where tests showed he was experiencing a severe allergic reaction to a peanut he had eaten.
It was also causing his airways to swell, stopping him from breathing properly and he could have died if he had not received urgent treatment.
But thankfully George, from Whitchurch, Hampshire, became one of 139 people aged between three and 23 taking part in an experiment to slowly “desensitise” those with severe milk and peanut allergies.
It does so by giving tiny but increasing doses of off-the-shelf foods. Early results of the £2.5million study reveal George is among a number of children showing dramatic signs of improvement.
He enrolled on the trial at Southampton hospital last September. He has been exposed to tiny, but increasing, doses of peanuts.
His tolerance has increased and now he can eat the equivalent of six peanuts without a reaction.
His mother, Claire, a telecom salesperson, said: “I had heard of peanut allergies but I didn’t realise the life-threatening severity of it until I had a child with one.
“It affected so much of our lives.we were worried about going out to eat, we avoided planes, and whenever we did go out we would choose the restaurant carefully and wipe down the table in case there were peanut traces on the surface.”
Claire, also mum to seven-year-old Isla, said: “The trial has been transformational. George still has an allergy but if he accidentally swallowed a
peanut he wouldn’t even know it. It’s amazing.” Thomas Farmer, 11, was diagnosed with a severe peanut allergy when he was one. He can now eat six a day after joining the trial.
And five-year-old Grace Fisher has a milk allergy but is now able to drink 125ml a day since joining a trial in Newcastle.
The study at hospitals which also include London, Leicester, and Sheffield, is now set to be extended to four other sites in Scotland, Leeds and the South West. Researchers are also now including toddlers aged between two and three.
Peanuts are one of the most common allergycausing foods, and they are often included in items which are not nut-based, such as breakfast cereals, biscuits and curry sauces.
Scientists hope if successful the trial could provide evidence for everyday-foods treatment to be made available on the NHS. It is thought the technique might also help the three per cent of the population with food allergies.
The research is funded by the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation. It was set up by Nadim and Tanya Ednan-laperouse from Fulham, west London. Their 15-year-old daughter Natasha died in 2016 after suffering a severe allergic reaction to sesame baked into a Pret baguette.
Professor Hasan Arshad, a Southampton-based expert in allergies and asthma, and the study’s lead researcher, said: “Using everyday foods to treat allergies is inexpensive and cost effective.
“My hope is in the not-too-distant future, life-threatening reactions will become a thing of the past.”
‘It affected our lives. Trial was transformational’