Scientists Create Allergy-free Peanuts

The details are murky, and you can call us skeptical, but according to a report from the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, its researcher Dr. Mohamed Ahmedna developed a strain of peanuts that is free of allergens. Since IgE mediated allergy of peanuts is due to two proteins–vicilin (Ara h1) and conglutin (Ara h2)–we would imagine the development of a new strain is quite a complicated process. The press release, however, claims 100% success in elimination of these antigens:

An agricultural researcher at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University has developed a simple process to make allergen-free peanuts. The new process–a first for food science–could provide relief to millions of peanut allergy sufferers, and be an enormous boon to the entire peanut industry.

Doug Speight of the N.C. A&T Office of Outreach and Technology Transfer said food companies are showing a strong interest in licensing the process, which does not degrade the taste or quality of treated peanuts, and might even render them easier to process for use as a food ingredient.

Immunoassays showed 100 percent inactivation of peanut allergens in whole roasted kernels, and the processed peanuts showed no reaction in tests on human serums from severely allergic individuals. The inventor, Dr. Mohamed Ahmedna, is optimizing the process further to remove allergens from other foods.

“We are extremely pleased that we were able to find such a simple solution to a vexing problem that has enormous economic and public health ramifications, both for peanut sensitive individuals, and the food industry as a whole,” said Ahmedna, associate professor of food science in N.C. A&T’s School of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences.

Peanut and tree nut allergies are the most severe of all food allergies, affecting approximately 3 million Americans, and causing 100 – 150 deaths from anaphylactic shock annually and many more hospitalizations. In industrialized nations, the allergy has been rapidly increasing in children, for causes that are not entirely understood. One study showed that between 1997 and 2002, peanut allergies in children doubled in the United States. Today, an estimated one percent of all children suffer from the allergy.

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Press release: N.C. A&T FOOD SCIENTIST DEVELOPS ALLERGEN-FREE PEANUT …
Peanut Allergy…