Hope of cure for peanut allergy

A team from Addenbrooks Hospital, Cambridge gradually exposed four children to peanuts over a period of six months - building up their tolerance. By the end of the period the children were eating the equivalent of five peanuts a day.

This is the first time that a food allergy has been desensitised in this way, but long-term follow up is needed before the results can be confirmed.

The Cambridge team started the children on tiny 5mg daily doses of peanut flour before they trained their bodies up to cope regularly with 800mg - the equivalent to five whole peanuts.

The concept of desensitising people to allergies has been successfully done with bee and wasp stings and pollen allergies, but this is the first time it has been achieved with a food-related allergy.

A few trials were done in the 1990s using peanut injections, but these were not successful.

The research was published in the journal Allergy.