Home
Share
Forum
Asthma Forum
Research and useful tips - Asthma
End of inhalers? Cure for asthma and food allergies on horizon

Back

Patients Asthma

End of inhalers? Cure for asthma and food allergies on horizon

19 views
0 support
1 comment

Gilda

Community manager

Edited on 16/05/2016 at 16:50

Good advisor

Gilda

Community manager

Last activity on 03/02/2023 at 15:26

Joined in 2015

710 comments posted | 26 in the Asthma Forum

Rewards

Good Advisor
Contributor
Messenger
Committed
Explorer
Evaluator

View profileView Add a friendAdd Write

A universal cure for asthma and food allergies is on the horizon after scientists found a way to convince the immune system to ignore triggers like pollen or peanuts.

The new approach involves taking a small amount of the problem food or allergen and encasing it in a special shell to form a 'nanoparticle' which the immune system sees as debris.

When specialist cleaning cells move in to sweep away the debris, they find the hidden cargo, but send out a signal to say that it is not harmful.

"The findings represent a novel, safe and effective long-term way to treat and potentially 'cure' patients with life-threatening respiratory and food allergies," said Professor Stephen Miller of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Illinois, US.

"This may eliminate the need for life-long use of medications to treat lung allergy.

"It's a universal treatment. Depending on what allergy you want to eliminate, you can load up the nanoparticle with ragweed pollen or a peanut protein."

The approach has been trialled for autoimmune diseases including multiple sclerosis and celiac disease but it is the first time this method for creating tolerance in the immune system has been used in allergic diseases.

The asthma allergy study was in mice, but trials in humans are likely to begin soon.

In trials, the allergen, in this case egg protein, was administered into the lungs of mice who have been pre-treated to be allergic to the protein and already had antibodies in their blood against it.

So when they were re-exposed to it, they responded with an allergic response like asthma.

However after being treated with the nanoparticle, they no longer had an allergic response to the allergen.

The treatment also creates a more normal, balanced immune system by increasing the number of regulatory T cells, immune cells important for recognizing the airway allergens as normal.

This method turns off the dangerous Th2 T cells that causes the allergy and expands the good, calming regulatory T cells.

The research was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Telegraph

All comments

Unregistered member

16/05/2016 at 16:50

Thank you for the information- looks promising

End of inhalers? Cure for asthma and food allergies on horizon https://www.carenity.co.uk/forum/asthma/my-library-asthma/end-of-inhalers-cure-for-asthma-and-food-aller-967 2016-05-16 16:50:11

Members are also commenting on...

Articles to discover...

15/05/2024 | Testimonial

Asthma: "I’m excited to read the final research and know that I’ve helped to shape it."

08/05/2024 | Testimonial

Asthma & Emphysema: "Like everything in life, it’s not easy to come to terms with your own limits!"

07/05/2024 | Advice

Tips for relieving asthma symptoms without medication

02/05/2023 | Advice

Asthma: tips for managing the disease on a daily basis

21/03/2018 | Testimonial

Managing Asthma, COPD and Diabetes: steroids, side effects and food diary

08/10/2018 | Advice

Benefits of using a humidifier

12/07/2017 | Advice

Steroids may do more harm than good in some cases of severe asthma

09/08/2016 | News

First new asthma pill in 20 years hailed as ‘wonder drug’ by sufferers

End of inhalers? Cure for asthma and food allergies on horizon

All comments

Give your opinion

Members are also commenting on...

Articles to discover...

Medication fact sheets - patient opinions...