“For people with food allergies, accidentally eating the wrong thing could prove deadly. Now, for the first time, an asthma drug has been shown to protect people from severe reactions if they ingest a small amount of a food they’re allergic to.

In a study reported on 25 February in The New England Journal of Medicine, researchers tested a drug called omalizumab in 3 adults and 177 children aged between one and 17 who were severely allergic to peanuts and at least two other foods. After about four months of treatment, 67% of those who received the drug were able to ingest the equivalent of two or three peanuts without it causing a significant reaction, compared with just 7% of those who received a placebo. Omalizumab seemed to be similarly effective at raising participants’ tolerance to other foods they were allergic to, including cashews, milk and eggs.”

From Nature.