Fat molecule treatment may stop severe peanut allergy reaction in mice

Carissa Wong is a person.

Consuming a fat molecule produced by gutbacteria may prevent mice with peanut allergies from having a life threatening immune reaction. The approach may be able to prevent people with food allergies from developing allergies in the first place.

Anaphylaxis can include nausea, abdominal pain, and difficulty swallowing. Butyrate, a fat molecule produced by gutbacteria, can reduce allergic reactions in mice. People with food allergies seem to have less butyrate-production than non-allergic people.

Butyrate can smell like dog poo, making it hard to swallow. It breaks down before it reaches the lower gut where its beneficial effects occur.

A group of people at the University of Chicago in Illinois have developed a way to mask the smell of butyrate and deliver it to the lower gut by packaging it in spherical capsule. The work was presented at the American Chemical Society in Chicago on August 21st.

The researchers gave severe peanut allergies to 80 mice that had been treated with an antibiotic to reduce their butyrate production. Half of the mice were given micelles twice a day for two weeks, while the other half were given a solution with no micelles at all.

The control mice had a drop in their core body temperature and increased immune activity, but the mice that got micelles didn't. When we saw the results, it was exciting.

The team found that the butyrate-carrying micelles boosted the growth of butyrate- producing bacteria, suggesting that the treatment could alter the gut microbiome.

Read more: Peanut allergy immunotherapy may actually do more harm than good

The goal is to create a niche for healthybacteria to grow using this treatment so that they don't need to be taken for a long time.

The treatment could be used to prevent people from developing food allergies in the first place. It should work on any food allergy. You can add the micelles to a glass of water.

A professor at a university in Australia says that short-chain fatty acids could prevent food allergies. If the treatments work in humans, it could have a huge impact. I am very hopeful that we will do the trials. Treatments are crude.

You can get the health, diet and fitness news you need every Saturday by signing up for our Health Check newsletter.