"Wheat Oral Immunotherapy Shows Promise" - Janel Miller
Low-dose vital wheat gluten oral immunotherapy induced desensitization after 1 year of treatment in patients with wheat allergy, according to findings recently published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. “Wheat is one of the most common food allergens in children. The only current ‘treatment’ for them is to avoid foods with wheat, which is difficult due to its ubiquitous presence in the American diet. Therefore, we need novel strategies to address wheat allergy,” Anna Nowak-Wegrzyn, MD, PhD, and professor of pediatrics, allergy and immunology at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Researchers conducted a double-blind, placebo-controlled food challenge study, then randomly assigned 46 patients with wheat allergy in a 1:1 ratio to receive low-dose wheat gluten oral immunotherapy that escalated to 1,445 mg of wheat protein biweekly, or placebo. Researchers found that after 1 year, 52% of those who received the oral immunotherapy and none of those who received placebo achieved the primary endpoint of a successfully consumed dose of at least 4,443 mg of wheat protein without an adverse event.
— Anna Nowak-Wegrzyn, MD, PhD, Professor, Pediatrics, Clinical Researcher, Jaffe Food Allergy Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai