Cracking peanut allergy: Non-digestible oligosaccharides facilitate safe and effective immunotherapy to treat peanut allergy

Abstract

A food allergy is an abnormal immune response to food. In the developed world, about 4% to 8% of people have at least one food allergy. A food allergy has a major effect on the quality of life because of the risk of an allergic response after accidental ingestion of the food. Unfortunately, there is still a lack of effective and safe treatments available for food allergic patients. Allergen immunotherapy is a medical treatment for allergies, and involves exposing patients to small amounts of allergen in an attempt to change the immune system's response. A major downside of these new developed therapeutic strategies is the risk of severe side effects. In this thesis it was shown that the non-digestible fibers added to the diet can lower the immune response after allergen exposure when given together with immunotherapy. Moreover, the side-effects seen after a single dose of immunotherapy is lowered in mice first fed the diet.