Gut microbiome transplant can help patients with peanut allergies
A pilot study indicates that fecal microbiome transplants may help patients with severe peanut allergies by introducing beneficial bacteria that improve immune response. Researchers found that participants who received the transplants showed increased tolerance to peanuts, potentially due to better bile salt processing.
Why it matters
This research offers a potential breakthrough in treating life-threatening food allergies through microbiome-based therapies.
Faecal transplants that adjust the assortment of bacteria in the intestines can ease severe peanut allergies in some patients, a pilot study suggests.
Researchers recruited 10 young adults with severe peanut allergies who reacted to mere traces of peanuts and had them swallow frozen "poop pills” containing faeces – including strains of helpful bacteria – from donors with healthy gut microbiomes.
Three months later, three participants could tolerate eating multiple peanuts, researchers reported in Science Translational Medicine .
In the next round of the study, another five volunteers took antibiotics before the fecal transplant to see if the donor bacteria transferred more successfully when they didn't have to compete with the participants’ own resident gut microbes.
Three of the five improved in peanut tolerance and ingested more than four peanuts before reacting, suggesting the antibiotics did increase the efficiency of the microbiome transfer.
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