Food Allergy Research

New Research Presented at ACAAI’s Annual Meeting

Leading allergists and immunologists from around the world gathered last week in Phoenix at the annual scientific meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology(ACAAI).

Presentations included the Food Allergy Herbal Formula (FAHF-2), a promising Chinese herbal formula currently being tested for use to treat food allergies; a preview of guidelines for diagnosis and management of food allergy in the U.S. (to be released next month); and the ability of peanut- or tree nut-allergic patients to visually identify these foods (researchers noted that only half of peanut- or tree nut-allergic patients ages 6 and up knew what the nut they are allergic to looked like).

Here are highlights from the media releases from ACAAI.

Researchers presented findings that influenza vaccines (seasonal and H1N1) can contain different amounts of allergenic components, most commonly egg and/or gelatin. Allergists suggest that any egg- or gelatin-allergic patient, or anyone with history of severe reaction to any influenza vaccine, be tested to the specific vaccine lot number they will be given prior to immunization. The study authors noted that it should not be assumed that if one dose of influenza vaccine has been tolerated that it will be tolerated in the future.

Also presented were findings from a study in which researchers examined IgE levels in subjects from the National Health and Nutrition Survey (NHANES), a large cross-sectional U.S. population survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics, in 2005-2006.

The results were then compared to the Tucson Epidemiological Study (TES), which examined similar data from the 1970s. “Particularly noteworthy is the doubling of IgE levels in individuals over 55 years, and the more gradual decline in levels with increasing age," wrote the authors. They attribute possible reasons for the increase to “allergic sensitization in our population or changes in lab testing.”