Oral immunotherapy with milk can cure milk allergies

Washington, November 1: Children with milk allergies can alleviate their suffering by increasing their milk intake, says a new study.

Researchers from John Hopkins concluded that increased intake can actually improve one’s response to milk and its allergic reactions over a period of time. The researchers, however, maintained that more elaborated studies need to be conducted on the subject.

Dr Robert Wood, senior researcher and director of Allergy & Immunologydefine at Hopkins said, "Our findings suggest that oral immunotherapy gradually retrains the immune systemdefine to completely disregard or to better tolerate the allergens in milk that previously caused allergic reactions. Albeit preliminary and requiring further study, these results suggest that oral immunotherapy may be the closest thing yet to a 'true' treatment for food allergy."

Children between 6 to 17 years of age were studied by researchers. One group was given milk powder while other was given placebo, which looked and tasted like milk powder. 19 children reported constant severe allergies for about four months. Out of these, 12 children were administered higher doses of milk and others were given placebo.

Initially, children could not bear milk more than a quarter teaspoon on average and showed indications of itching in mouth and abdominal paindefine but after the four-month trial, they could tolerate a normal amount of milk without any allergic symptoms, while those given placebo could not take more than 40 mg of milk powder without any allergy.

Researchers understand that regular intake of milk builds antibodies to milk in the system, thus suppressing allergic reactions. They also found that drinking milk on an everyday basis will result in acceptance to milk over a course of time.

However Wood said that, "It may very well be that this tolerance is lost once the immune system is no longer exposed to the allergen daily." The oral-immunotherapy study is published in the Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology.