CONNECTICUT –A grant of $407,000 has been given to a researcher at the University of Connecticut Health Center by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. This research is part of a new federal initiative to promote the study of food allergies.

Lynn Puddington, an associate professor in the Department of Immunology, is the recipient and lead researcher. Her study will examine whether exposure of newborns to food antigens in breast milk can actually induce better tolerance to those foods, including longer term protection from inflammatory responses to foods in the gut.

This research follows up on the theory that the best way to prevent allergies to foods is to support desensitization early in life. “We know from earlier studies that low doses of antigen delivered from mother to child in breast milk is recognized by [the child's body]“, says Puddington. “We hypothesize that the acquisition of food antigens in breast milk provides the perfect context for generating focused protection … where it is needed, in the gastrointestinal tract.”

Puddington hopes to determine whether the breast milk enhanced T regulatory cells survive after weaning, continuing to suppress allergy development for the child. If this is so, the protection provided by nursing may be sufficient to avoid allergies until the child’s digestive tract is fully matured and better able to block allergen exposure independently.

Little is currently known about why some individuals develop food allergies and others do not. However, the rates of food allergy are increasing at an alarming rate. As many as 8 per cent of children under age four have food allergy while only 4 per cent of individuals five and older have the condition.

Severe allergy can cause anaphylaxis, which is a life-threatening reaction. As many as 1,450 deaths can be attributed to food-related anaphylactic reactions out of approximately 30,000 each year.

Source: University of Connecticut