Egg Beater: Overcoming a Food Allergy

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Egg Beater: Overcoming a Food Allergy

– Reported, April 05, 2013

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — Fearful of food. For 15 million Americans with food allergies, what they eat could kill them. The problem seems to be on the rise too. The CDC reports an 18 percent increase between 1997 and 2007. Now, doctors discovered something that is helping some beat their allergies.

Hannah Gooch loves the ukulele and a food that could have killer her.

“I really like how they taste,” Hannah Gooch told Ivanhoe.

Hannah was allergic to eggs, but not anymore.

“It’s a huge thing. I mean it makes me kind of teary thinking about it,” Necia Joy Gooch, Hannah’s mom, told Ivanhoe.

She took part in an egg allergy study led by Dr. Wesley Burks, Professor and Chair in the Department of Pediatrics at North Carolina Children’s Hospital.

“There’s no proactive treatment and that’s the reason this study was done,” Wesley Burks, MD, told Ivanhoe.

Kids with the allergy ate egg protein every day.

“They’d give me a dose of egg protein in powder,” Hannah said.

“We mixed it with applesauce,” Necia Joy said.

About once a year, they would eat a real egg to test their tolerance. At the end of three years, 45 percent of the kids were able to add egg to their diets.

“They just said Hannah can have egg and we were all surprised” Necia Joy explained.

Dr. Burks says the results are promising.

However, “more phase two and then more phase three studies need to be done before we can say yes, it’s the right thing to do,” Dr. Burks explained.

It’s changed Hannah’s life. Now she can focus on her music, not her old allergy.

Dr. Burks tells us further studies testing the egg allergy treatment are in the works. He says if successful, it could be applied to other common food allergies, like milk and peanuts.