Cure peanut allergies with stickers

Children with severe allergies to peanuts can eat peanuts after a year using special patches on their skin, according to the Daily Mail on June 24.

It is a sticker called Viaskin Peanut created by the research team of Professor Christophe Dupont at the Necker Hospital (France).

The patch contains a very small amount of peanut proteins and slowly infiltrates the skin of children with severe allergies to peanuts. The amount of this protein is very small and only stays on the skin, not absorbed into the blood, so it does not cause anaphylaxis.

This way the body gets used to the proteins in peanuts and does not consider them a threat to the body.

200 children with severe allergies to peanuts, aged 5 to 17, have used this patch. Some children get a Viaskin Peanut patch on their arms or on their backs and get a new patch every day.

After 12 months, at least 20% of children using real patches were 10 times more likely to eat peanut protein than the amount of protein that the body could tolerate at the start of the study.

After 18 months, this number increased to 40%.

The allergy to peanuts usually starts at a very young age and the first allergy occurs between 14 months and 2 years of age.