How to Use This Blog

When you post, please start with a complete bibliographic citation for the item you are reviewing. Summarize the work in about 250 words, then analyze the item and synthesize how it fits in with other things you've read (here, in class, in other classes, or on your own). Finally add one or more keyword labels to help us organize the bibliography.

Showing posts with label food allergies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food allergies. Show all posts

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Food Allergy: Are we getting closer to a cure?

Leung, Donald Y. M. "Food Allergy: Are we getting closer to a cure?" J Allergy Clin Immunol 127 (2011): 555-7.
This is a short overview editorial which discusses various topics which relate to food allergy: prevalence, diagnosis, risk factors, and new treatments being researched. There is also a more technical section in the article about the immune mechanisms of food allergy which wouldn't be appropriate for my intended audience. The association between atopic dermatitis (AD) and food allergy is discussed as well as genetic factors which could influence the development of food allergy.
New treatment approaches which target food allergies are discussed. Although the goal of some of the research may be to find a cure, a more immediate one is finding a way that food allergy sufferers might increase their tolerance of their specific allergen, thereby increasing the likelihood that they could survive an accidental exposure.
I will use some of the information I read in this editorial as a statistical foundation for the prevalence of food allergy in the U.S. and also as a basic introduction of the new treatments being investigated.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Peanut Allergies

My 9-year-old daughter has a peanut allergy. It was discovered when she was 3 years old and had her first bite of peanut butter. When the hives appeared around her mouth my stomach sank. I knew that this was a life altering experience for my daughter and for our family. Over the course of the past 9 years, I’ve learned as much as I can about peanut allergies and promising research into the desensitization of peanut allergies, but there are always new developments.

Most people know of someone who suffers from a food/peanut allergy. It’s a topic that touches many lives and that is why I’ve chosen it for my research project. After reading my paper, I’d like you to come away with information you didn’t know about peanut allergies and the research into possible cures. My working research question is: What are peanut allergies and is there hope for a cure?

1. Young, M.C. Peanut Allergy Answer Book. 2nd ed. Fair Winds Press, 2006.

This is the peanut allergy bible and it covers every topic from Food Allergies in a Nutshell to Peanut Allergies 101. I’ve read different portions of this book over the past 9 years, depending on which topic pertained to the current situation, and they were all very informative. The author is a pediatric allergist who graduated from Harvard University and Yale Medical School. Even though this edition is from 2006, the information is still valid and a research project would not be complete without it.

2.Clark, A.T., Islam, S., King, Y., Deighton, J., Anagnostou, K.,Ewan,P.W.
Successful oral tolerance induction in severe peanut allergy.Abstract.
Allergy.64(2009): 1218–1220. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1398-9995.2009.01982.x/abstract.

The goal of the study this abstract describes was to find out if peanut oral immunotherapy (OTI) would induce a greater tolerance to peanut protein. Background information on peanut allergy, methods, and results of the study were shared. The study demonstrated that tolerance to peanuts could be increased using oral immunotherapy. This is good research material for a project. The study was done in the UK.


3. The Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network. (n.d.). Tips for Managing a Peanut
Allergy.www.foodallergy.org/allergens/peanut.html.

FAAN is a website which is an invaluable resource for those with food allergies. It provides information on the common food allergens and a host of other topics. The article I cited provides a list of items that may contain peanut and what kinds of restaurants to avoid. Again, this is a reliable source for introductory information regarding peanut allergies.