In the world of food, a man named Robert Wood who is the director of the Eudowood Division of Allergy, Immunology and Rheumatology at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, did a lab that has major implications on food allergies. This report is one of a major three-part study. This study was originally published in The New England Journal of Medicine on February 25th, 2024. Even though this study isn’t recent it’s still relatively new and important. In this lab he found that a drug called omalizumab has major implications on food allergies. This medication is an injectable and FDA-approved drug that is helpful in limiting and treating asthma and other food allergy conditions. This medication has been proven to reduced potentially life-threatening reactions in patients with food allergies and increase tolerance to different allergens. The study done compared and investigated the effects of omalizumab injections and placebo injections in about 200 participants ranging from age 1 to 55. All participants had peanut allergies and at least two other food allergies. This study lasted for about 16-20 weeks and all the subjects tested were randomly assigned omalizumab or a placebo. After the experiment ended the results gathered by the researchers showed that about 67% of patients treated with omalizumab were able to tolerate more peanut protein. The exact number of the increase in tolerance was about 600 milligrams. This in terms of allergies is a lot as that is about 3 to 4 peanuts more than without the drug. This can allow for less life threating reactions from accidental exposure. The placebo however only had an increase of tolerance in about 7% of the participants. This lab also found that omalizumab increased the tolerance for other common food allergens. For example, dairy, eggs, grains, and other nuts. The result showed that it increased tolerance up enough that the patients could have little to no reaction if they were accidently exposed to a decent amount of about 800 milligrams of the allergen. After this study the FDA has officially approved omalizumab for the treatment of multiple food allergies and will continue to be studied on. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2312382
