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Peanut buttress
The news on a Louisville television station’s Web site is that, “Researchers in North Carolina say they’ve developed a special fermentation process that cuts the level of allergic proteins in peanuts by 70 percent.” A news service specializing in health and science which has more than two million visitors a month (http://www.news-medical.net/?id=10759) says that, “According to Dr. Jianmei Yu, and her colleagues at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, if the new processing method is successful it could allow for allergy-free peanut butter, cookies and other peanut products.” And London-based Reuters (which along with the Associated Press is one of the world’s two most influential news services) reported that, “A special fermentation process may significantly reduce the potential for allergic reaction to peanut products ... Dr. Jianmei Yu ... and her colleagues at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro reported... in Atlanta at a meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.” (The complete article is at this link). Dr. Ipek Goktepe and Corrie Stowe, a graduate student, have been collaborating on the project, which is led by Dr. Mohamed Ahmedna, who was cited in a Greensboro News & Record story on children and food allergies (http://www.news-record.com/news/local/gso/peanut_062105.htm).
Research into peanut allergies is a hot topic because of the sometimes life-threatening reactions many children with allergies have when they ingest, or so much as come in contact with peanut products. There has also been a significant rise in the percentage of children with food allergies in recent decades.
Some school districts (including a few in North Carolina) have removed peanut products from school cafeteria menus, while others have gone so far as to set aside peanut-free tables in school cafeterias — where peanut products are banned even from lunches students bring from home. A Florida teenager’s severe allergies recently led to special permission for the teen to attend school with a helper dog trained to sniff out peanut products. The governor of Florida recently signed a bill allowing children with severe allergies to have anti-reaction EpiPens (a needle for a quick injection of epinephrine to reverse swelling) on school grounds, and the poster girl for the legislation was a 9-year-old with peanut allergies.
Although research into reasons behind the increased number of children with food allergies is just beginning, one theory is that the rise is a result of the reduction in infant illnesses because of better vaccinations, leading to immune system overreaction to the proteins in peanuts and other common stimulants. As for research such as Dr. Yu’s that holds potential for suppressing the allergic reaction potential in everyday foods, there’s no need to theorize. It’s of vital importance.
Posted June 23, 2005 03:41 PM