It seems to me that food allergies among children are far more prevalent than when I was a child. In fact, I don’t remember any kids in my grade school class having food allergies. The only friend I have with an allergy to a food is my college roommate, who is so allergic to eggs we couldn’t cook them in our townhouse without opening every window. But we grew up in the 80s. From 1997 to 2007, food allergies among children increased 18% with 3 million reported cases of childhood food allergies. One of the more common allergies is nut, especially peanut. In fact, schools across the country are even going as far as to outlaw peanut butter in their buildings.
Researchers have been working around the clock to find ways to combat these allergies or keep them from every occurring. They’ve discovered that giving children with peanut allergies a tiny amount of peanut paste and increasing the amount over time eventually “cures” them of the allergy. And pediatricians who once believed that early exposure to peanuts would cause an allergy are now saying the opposite is true. Now the latest findings seem to show that food allergies can be cured with an herbal therapy.
Researchers at the Center for Chinese Herbal Therapy for Allergy and Asthma at Mount Sinai School of Medicine found that Food Allergy Herbal Formula (FAHF-2) built long-term protection against peanut-induced anaphylaxis in mice following treatment, and protected the peanut allergic mice from anaphylaxis for over 36 weeks after treatment ended. Thirty-six weeks is ¼ of a mouse’s lifespan.
With 80% of near-fatal and even fatal anaphylaxis cases caused by peanut allergies, this is a significant finding. The drug has received approval from the Food and Drug Administration and clinical trials on humans have begun in order to test the safety and efficacy of FAHF-2 on allergies including peanut, tree nut, fish and shellfish. It has the potential to become the most effective and readily available treatment for food allergies, saving people from hospital trips due to symptoms ranging from mouth tingling to death, and also saving parents a lot of worry.