"If we go by IgE testing alone, we re going to overdiagnose the vast majority of people with food allergies that they don t actually have," according to Dr David R. Stukus.
Westend61/iStock(NEW YORK) A peanut allergy treatment often used on children 4 years old and up in the U.S. appears to be safe for toddlers too, a new study has found. Around 2% of children in the country suffer from the allergy, some to a debilitating degree, which is why the discovery is "extremely exciting," said Dr. David Stukus, professor of clinical pediatrics and director of the Food Allergy Treatment Center at Nationwide Children's Hospital. In the study, conducted by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases across multiple hospitals, researchers added powder containing peanuts to the daily diets of children, and found that over time, a large majority of them became desensitized to peanuts. A smaller group of children even achieved full remission, meaning they were no longer allergic to peanuts at all. While almost all the children studied had reactions to the peanut products, most were mild to moderate in severity, experts said. The study also