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Scientists say they have taken a major step forward in finding a cure for peanut allergies.

A new study, published in the journal The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, finds that a new therapy being used to treat peanut allergies has kept patients from experiencing an allergic reaction to peanuts over a four-year period.

The report was a follow-up to a previous study that found a combination of probiotics and peanut protein significantly increased tolerance to peanuts in children who were allergic.

Currently, there is no cure for food allergies, which are on the rise in the U.S. and around the world.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, food allergies among children in this country increased approximately 50 percent between 1997 and 2011. The number of children with peanut allergies specifically more than tripled to 1.4 percent of kids in 2008, up from 0.4 percent in 1997, a 2010 study from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine found.

Food allergies result in 200,000 emergency room visits each year, according to the advocacy group Food Allergy Research and Education (FARE) and are the leading cause of anaphylaxis, a potentially life-threatening reaction that disrupts breathing and causes a sudden drop in blood pressure

Experts say food allergies have a major impact on quality of life for both children and their families.

“Patients and families must be constantly vigilant about what they eat,” Mimi Tang, of the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne, and lead researcher of The Lancet study, told CBS News. “They are constantly worried about the possibility of having a life-threatening allergic reaction, and they remain in constant fear of potentially dying from a serious allergic reaction, although this is very unlikely.”

In the initial study, Tang and her team tested the effectiveness of the combination treatment in 56 children with peanut allergies. Some of the children were given the probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus in conjunction with a small, carefully controlled dose of peanut protein every day for 18 months. The other group of kids received a placebo.

At the end of the study period, 82 percent of the children who received the study treatment gained tolerance to peanuts compared to only 4 percent of children in the placebo group.

For the latest study, the researchers followed up with 48 of these children four years after stopping the treatment to see if the effects lasted long-term.

“We found that most of the children who had gained initial tolerance following the treatment were still eating peanuts four years later,” Tang said. “This is a major step forward in the way we might treat food allergy, as our findings suggest that tolerance is a realistic target to aim for when developing treatments for food allergy.”

No other food allergy treatment in development has been shown to do this effectively in a large proportion of treated subjects, Tang points out.

In an accompanying editorial, Matthew Greenhawt of the department of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine calls the therapeutic effect seen in the studies “remarkable.”

“The broader context of what these findings potentially represent is a demonstration of true tolerance, whereby patients could mimic the eating habits of non-allergic individuals,” he wrote.

However, he notes the study is limited due to its small sample size, and says the research needs to be replicated in future studies.

Tang says she and her team are already running follow-up research across three sites in Australia. However, even if successful, the treatment will not be available for most patients and doctors for at least another five to 10 years.

Still, she says it looks promising that a cure for peanut allergies may be on the horizon.

“There is hope for a new food allergy treatment that can induce tolerance, which will allow children to incorporate peanut into their diets,” she said.

© 2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Less than two days later, Amy May Shead, 26, would be lying in an induced coma with brain damage after a single bite of a meal, following a heart attack triggered by an anaphylactic shock.

Now, the family of the former television producer is calling for nuts to be banned on flights as their daughter struggles to recover from her life-changing reaction.

Speaking on UK breakfast television show, This Morning, where Amy used to work, parents Sue and Roger Shead told of their heartbreak at seeing their daughter’s life changed after just one mouthful of a contaminated meal of chicken and rice at a Budapest restaurant in 2014.

Mum Sue Shead said her daughter’s shock set in immediately after taking a bite of the food she had ordered — despite confirming with the chef she was allergic to nuts.

“Immediately she felt her throat tightening and went into anaphylactic shock,” Sue Shead said about her cautious daughter who carried an allergy card in multiple languages.

Despite being equipped with two EpiPens, the reaction was so severe Amy’s heart stopped beating and she was pronounced dead for six minutes.

The family flew to Budapest and were sat down upon entering the hospital and braced for the severity of the news.

“We didn’t know what to expect,” she said. “They didn’t actually think she would survive the week. They had her at a 30 per cent chance of actually getting through that week.”

Amy spent three weeks in intensive care and was sedated to maximum levels in an attempt to reduce the swelling in her brain. She can now understand what is being said around her but is not able to communicate, having suffered severe brain damage due to a lack of oxygen.

Her family have been privately financing her medical bills due to the lifelong condition that meant she was unable to receive medical insurance. They were also unable to sue the restaurant given there is no compulsory public liability insurance in Hungary, and are now appealing to the public to help fund the cost of her treatment.

Viewers shared their heartbreak at the story on social media, with many saying they did not realise how serious the problem could be.

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The Amy May Trust is now working to raise awareness of nut allergies and have them banned from flights, where recycled air can put allergy sufferers at risk. Read more or donate to the Amy May Trust here.

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Strong winds this week have also added to the allergy miseries, spreading the results of the early blooms.

“In the early part of spring we see trees will release their pollens, but we have trees pollinating early,” leading allergist and immunologist Professor Pete Smith said.

Sydney Pollen Count’s Professor Connie Katelaris said both native and exotic trees in our gardens are to blame.

“We’ve got casuarinas and pine trees starting to pollinate and all the park trees, the European trees like oak and elm and birch, they are all starting to let out their pollen,” Prof Katelaris said.

“People blame the wattle because it’s flowering everywhere but it’s not a particularly serious allergen.”

Prof Katelaris said the warm late winter had played a big role in the early blooming but it was exacerbated by the wind. On Friday, Sydney recorded gusts of about 100km/h — blowing the pollen around.

Sydney’s average top temperature for August is 17C with minimums of 8C but most days this year have been from 19C up to 26C.

Luckily for sufferers, grasses across the state have not yet joined trees in pollinating.

The peak for grass pollination, a serious allergen, is October and November but Prof Katelaris said grasses would start being a problem in September this year.

The peak for grass pollination, a serious allergen, is October and November but Prof Katelaris said we should start to see grasses causing problems in September this year.

“Allergens aggravate and irritate the upper airways, we breath 10,000—12,000L of air a day and we breath up to 100 million molecules per breath so our upper airways are there to detect danger and respond to it and some people’s airways over-respond,” Prof Smith said.

Recent research shows people that suffer allergic rhinitis, which causes runny or blocked nose and itchy eyes, also suffer more anxiety because it affects sleep.

Newcastle hayfever sufferer Janet Roper Clark said she had been sniffling and crying for three weeks, much earlier than usual.

“My eyes have kept running to the point it is embarrassing and my nose is running and I have an itchy sore throat and it’s just come on in the last three weeks. It’s been horrendous,” the 58-year-old said

“I usually get it in spring when someone first mows their lawn, but you only have to look at the trees to see all the fluffy stuff flying around. This is the worst I’ve had it in eight years.”

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While pharmacy shelves are stocked with hundreds of preparations to alleviate the misery for sufferers, Prof Smith said few people get the over the counter medication right.

“The treatment of allergies is the second or third most profitable line in pharmacies. You go to the chemist to get advice and you get the junior sales assistant with no medical training on how to treat allergies and will rely on the TV advertising and go for antihistamines, but most antihistamines only improve symptoms by 7 to 10 per cent,” Prof Smith said.

“Topical nasal steroids work far better and mimic what the body does in a stress response but rather than having your whole body stressed out, you just use it nasally on an area about the size of 50 cents and people can breathe again.

“If you put antihistamine head to head with nasal steroids, you are far better off taking a nasal steroid for symptom relief, they work better.

“Using saline rinses also seems to help, you can get squeeze bottles to rinse out the nose and that rinses out the allergic response which causes symptoms as well.”

Fist Aid Course in Canberra. The only treatment for first aid is running cold water. 

A medical doctor, Dr. Jamiu Umah, has warned the public to stop applying raw eggs and other substances as first aid on victims of burns saying it is an unwholesome practice.

Umah, a staff member with the Burns and Trauma Centre of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), disclosed this to newsmen in Lagos on Friday. He described the use of raw eggs among other substances to treat burns as “unhealthy and unscientific”. “What is medically advocated as first aid for victims from hot substances such as water, petrol, coal, fire wood, gas, and even chemical burns is to immerse the victim in water. “The belief that robbing raw eggs, pap, engine oil, wet salt and wet flour on the bodies of victims of burns as a first aid measure is wrong, unsafe, unhygienic and inappropriate.

“The medical advice in such situations is to immerse the victim in water and at best when possible in cold water,’’ he said. He said that cold water would help to cool the heat energy that caused the burns on the victim in the first place. “Heat energy is the main cause of burns and so the normal and proper application is to rob on the victim’s body a substance that will reduce the effect of the heat. “And if the heat energy that aggravates burns is reduced, victims of burns at most can suffer from blisters and not deep burns penetrating into the skin and flesh,’’ he said. Umah said that the robbing of engine oil on the bodies of victims of burns was the commonest in the last five years. “Most of those brought into the hospital with serious burns have had engine oil robbed on them. “The second common item also wrongfully applied on them by the people to stabilise burns patients before bringing them to the hospital was raw egg,’’ he said. Oh my these people need to complete a first aid course.

The expert said applying wet edible materials as first aid on victims of fire accidents was unknown to medical science. “These are not known to the medical field, research or advice. “It is a huge misconception to rob edibles that have high protein contents on victims of burns. “These food items contain protein that serve as food for bacteria and when applied on wounds, they will only create feeding and breeding grounds for micro organisms to flourish. “What has been ultimately achieved by robbing edibles on bodies of victims of burns is for infection to flourish on the wounds of such patients. “It also makes the treatment of burns difficult as well as worsens the victims’ recuperation. “ Robbing of raw eggs, pap, engine oil, wet salt and wet flour on victims of burns worsens the wounds,’’ he said.

Book in to a first aid course in Canberra now with our weekly training sessions held in Dickson or organise a group and we can come to you to complete your nationally recognised first aid course. Book now at www.canberrrafirstaid.com

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/08/robbing-raw-egg-burns-first-aid-wrong-expert/

A small clinical trial conducted at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute resulted in two-thirds of the children being treated with an experimental immunotherapy treatment being rid of their allergy.

Importantly, their desensitisation to peanuts persisted for up to four years after treatment.

“These children had been eating peanut freely in their diet without having to follow any particular program of peanut intake in the years after treatment was completed,” trial lead Mimi Tang said on Thursday.

Peanut allergy is the most common cause of anaphylaxis, a life-threatening allergic reaction, and one of the most common causes of food allergy deaths. Immunologist and allergist Professor Tang has pioneered a new form of treatment that combines a probiotic with peanut oral immunotherapy, known as PPOIT. Instead of avoiding the allergen, the treatment is designed to reprogram the immune system response to peanuts and over the longer term develop tolerance. It’s thought combining probiotics with the immunotherapy gives the immune system the “nudge” it needs, Prof Tang said.

A total of 48 children were enrolled in the PPOIT trial and were randomly given either a combination of the probiotic, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, together with peanut protein in increasing amounts, or a placebo, once daily for 18 months. At the end of the first stage of the trial in 2013, 82 per cent of children who received the probiotic and peanut oral immunotherapy treatment were deemed tolerant to peanuts compared with just four per cent in the placebo group. Four years later, the majority who gained initial tolerance were still eating peanut as part of their normal diet while 70 per cent passed a further challenge test to confirm long-term tolerance to peanut.

Prof Tang said the results were very exciting and had been life-changing for the children.

“We had children who came into the study allergic to peanuts, having to avoid peanuts in their diet, being very vigilant around that, carrying a lot of anxiety,” she said.

“At the end of treatment, and even four years later, many of these children who had benefited from our probiotic peanut therapy could now live like a child who didn’t have peanut allergy.” The results have been published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health. If confirmed by larger clinical studies, the broader hope is that the treatment can impact more food allergies among children.

“This is a major step forward in identifying an effective treatment to address the food allergy problem in Western societies,” Prof Tang said.

Vanessa Brownnews.com.au@vanessajbrown

THIS IS the stuff of nightmares.

Horrific photos of a snake bite have shown just what happens when a victim doesn’t receive adequate treatment following an attack.

The images, which were posted to Facebook group ‘Faculty of Veterinary Medicine’in New York, show the hand of an unidentified victim who has been bitten by a Sharp-nosed viper.

Initially, the bite itself looks like a small cut. But according to US-born, Australian-based venomologist Dr Bryan Fry — a bite like this can cause the death of cells within hours — which is exactly what happened for this person.

“That type of snake [Sharp-nosed viper] has a venom that is extremely tissue destroying,” Dr Fry told news.com.au.

“The reason for this is that they kill their prey by haemorrhagic shock, where some parts of the venom damage the blood vessel walls, while other parts destroy the ability of the blood to clot, leading to a state of massive internal bleeding in a prey animal.”

As Associate Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Queensland, Dr Fry said because it is a Chinese snake, antivenom for a bite like this might be hard to come by in remote areas so having done a first aid course will help victim.

“If it was in a private collection somewhere, they probably didn’t have it and likely none of the nearby zoos would either,” he explained.

“Thus, they’d have to suffer through the full effects.”

Dr Fry, who studies different types of venom and their potential use for drug development, said massive swelling and bruising would show up in a matter of hours, while large chunks of tissue would be dead in a day or two.

“A finger or entire hand may have to be amputated 3-4 days after the bite,” he said.

“Other parts of the body may also be affected, with kidneys in particular copping a real beating so a person may be on dialysis too for the rest of their life.

In 2014, photos emerged of a 13-year-old girl whose leg shrivelled and turned completely black after being bitten by a snake.

She too had premature death of cells which caused her leg tissue to die.

According to the Instagram user who posted the image, the young girl was treated using traditional remedies from her indigenous culture before being transferred to Venezuela’s capital city for emergency medical treatment a month later.

The Instagram description written by Dr. Moreno Castillo, a surgeon specialising in trauma and orthopedics in the Central University of Venezuela and the University Hospital of Caracas, acknowledged the patient also suffered a broken elbow from the incident with the snake.

Make sure you complete a first aid course so that you can treat a snake bite.

News.com.au has contacted the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in New York for comment.

He was tidying up the house when he spotted the reptile slithering in the shadows underneath the cot, and quickly called the experts.

Sunshine Coast Snake Catchers shared this image on Facebook, but even when you know it’s there the snake isn’t easy to spot.

“A Little Mountain local was vacuuming his house today when he saw what he thought to be a young brown snake in the [baby’s] room! Keeping an eye on the snake he gave us a call and I rushed out,” said a snake catcher called Max.

He found slippery little sucker lurking between the nappy box and the wall.

Initially, the father believed the snake could be an eastern brown, which is fast moving, aggressive, and the world’s second most venomous snake.

Once he got there, he realised the culprit was actually a mildly venomous yellow-faced whip snake, which can leave a nasty swelling if it strikes.

Still, a snake is a snake, and your child’s bed is not a good place to find one.

It comes just a few weeks after an office worker made headlines for successfully wrangling a python out of an edit suite at Channel Nine in Darwin.

“My first suggestion to get rid of it was to burn the place down but no one else went for it,” tweeted news director Kate Limon.

She said her first instinct was to turn to the internet for help.

“I was googling (a snake catcher) to call ASAP but turns out our program manager is a wildlife warrior,” she said.

“She lives on a property and wasn’t scared at all.

“In her bloody floral dress and heels — she put us all to shame.”