A treatment for peanut allergies may be on the horizon

It's one of the most difficult food allergies to combat and can be deadly.

Any peanut allergy sufferers or parents of sufferers will be aware of how dangerous the nuts can be. However, a new study from Australia may hold the key to a cure for the allergy. In a small trial conducted at Murdoch Children's Research Institute in Melbourne, one group of children were given a probiotic, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, alongside a peanut protein for 18 months. Meanwhile, a control group of kids were given a placebo. After just one month, 82 per cent of the kids who took the probiotic with the peanut protein experienced no allergic reaction to peanuts, compared with just 4 per cent if those in the placebo group. Even four years later, 70 percent of the group that had taken the peanut protein still suffered no reaction. The treatment was designed to retrain the immune system and build a tolerance to peanuts, according to Professor Mimi Tang, the immunologist and allergist who lead the study. She said its results were life-changing for the participants, reports The Guardian.

"The way I see it is that we had children who came into the study allergic to peanuts, having to avoid peanuts in their diet, being very vigilant around that, carrying a lot of anxiety with that and, at the end of treatment and even four years later, many of these children who had benefited from our probiotic peanut therapy could now live like a child who didn’t have peanut allergy.”

The research, published in a study in health journal The Lancet, will need to be repeated in further trials but could finally mean a cure to peanut allergies.