A CURE for food allergies is expected within the next decade, researchers studying allergens, the cause of the trouble, told a conference yesterday.

Ronald van Ree, of the University of Amsterdam, said that he expected treatments to be ready in seven to ten years, including one for peanut allergies. He said that recent advances in understanding how allergens could be isolated and varients created had opened the way to safe immunotherapies.

Immunotherapy is being tested for hay fever and has been used for patients with respiratory allergies, but has risks. Side effects include severe allergic reations and the possibility of fatalities from anaphylactic shock.

The creation of hypoallegenic varients, however, gives researchers the opportunity to carry out treatments with a low risk of serious side effects. The varients are mild forms of an allergen, so any reaction should be much weaker.

There have also been advances in the understanding of how some people acquire natural immunity to allergens. A recent study in Germany indicated that those who had been on farms as children and had drunk unpasteurised milk were clear of dairy allergies as adults.Scientists, who think that those adults’ immunity was caused by exposure to bacteria, believe that if they isolate the element that suppresses an immune system’s reaction to allegens, they will be able to develop a new range of drugs.

“At present the only treatment for food allergy is avoidance and rescue medication,” Dr van Ree told the British Association for the Advancement of Science, meeting in Norwich.

“Avoidance is difficult and sometimes even impossible. The one thing we really need for food allergy patients is a treatment that can cure the disease. I’m pretty confident this will come about within ten years.” He added that the treatment would be expensive but it would provide protection for patients who now spend their lives in fear of accidentally eating food that could kill them.

Rarer food allergies are unlikely to be included because it would be too costly for pharmaceutical companies to develop the treatment, but the more common allergies are expected to be covered.

The first treatment is expected to be for peanut allergies, because they affect so many people. Then work will be done on treatments for reactions caused by shrimps, fruit, other nuts and possibly milk and eggs.

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