Those who suffer from peanut allergies just got some very good news when a doctor came up with a groundbreaking new treatment that does not have any side effects.

Known as sublingual immunotherapy, or SLIT, the treatment involves putting minuscule amounts of liquefied peanut protein under the tongue. There, it is absorbed immediately into the blood stream to desensitize the immune system to larger amounts of peanut protein.

The team that created the treatment was led by Edwin Kim, assistant professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, who was inspired to create it after his own son suffered a severe allergic reaction when he was just 9 months old. His research has now shown that SLIT can offer people a safe and effective way to protect themselves from severe allergic reactions, and even anaphylaxis, after patients were able to tolerate 10 to 20 times more peanut protein than it would take for them to get sick.

“As a parent of two children with nut allergies, I know the fear parents face and the need for better treatments,” said Kim, who is a member of the UNC Children’s Research Institute. “We now have the first long-term data showing that sublingual immunotherapy is safe and tolerable, while offering a strong amount of protection.”

There are three main immunotherapeutic ways that doctors have developed to treat nut allergies, and they all try to help patients avoid severe allergic reactions by desensitizing the immune system to nut proteins. Kim explained that 100 milligrams of peanut protein can trigger a severe allergic reaction, and this is the kind of trace amount that people fear can show up in food that has been “manufactured in a facility that processes peanuts.”

“The main idea beyond immunotherapy is not for kids to be able to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,” Kim said. “It’s to keep them safe from the small hidden exposures that could occur with packaged foods, at restaurants, and with other food exposures.”

Unlike other treatments, SLIT has very little risk of side effects. The only real side effect that was reported was itchiness around the mouth that lasted about 15 minutes and did not need treatment. Not a single person left the multi-year study of SLIT because of this side effect.

“SLIT participants tolerated between 10 and 20 times more peanut protein than it would take for someone to get sick,” Kim said. “We think this provides a good cushion of protection—maybe not quite as good as OIT—but with an easier mechanism (sublingually) and, as far as we can tell right now, a better safety signal.”

He added that SLIT is currently pending FDA-approval and it could be available to patients by the end of the year. Kim said that his team is now trying to study a SLIT subset of children ages 1 to 4 because separate OIT data indicated these youngest patients have a stronger, more lasting benefit to immunotherapy.

“We focus on the idea there is no one perfect drug for food allergy,” Kim said. “There will have to be a lot of shared decisions between physicians, patients, and parents about what method of treatment is best for each patient. We think SLIT could be a good option for a subset of patients.”

Find out more in the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59TNQzvbmoY