Food Allergy Treatment Options

For over a decade we've been told strict avoidance is the only "treatment" for food allergy. Finally we are hearing about, and starting to actually see, some real treatments for food allergies. A new e-book co-authored by Michele Hanson and Dr. Wesley Burks, "The Future of Food Allegy Therapeutics," discusses current treatments, as well as what's coming down the pipeline. There are many promising advances for food allergy treatment:

• immunotherapy as a method of desensitization
• adding anti-IgE monoclonal antibodies to immunotherapy
• antigen-fixed leukocytes
• vaccines containing modified recombinant food proteins coadministered with heat-killed Escherichia coli 
• Chinese herbal formulation,
•  anti-IgE mAbs 
• Trichuris suis ova therapy- (translation: eggs of the pig whipworm)

I've provided news links about each of these treatments as a point of reference. Talk to your allergist about these, or other possible treatments, for food allergies. I'm confident we will be hearing more about treating food allergies, rather than avoiding foods, in the coming years.