Food allergies: the latest research

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The dread of an allergic reaction makes new mothers anxious about introducing foods - especially eggs, strawberries and peanuts - to their children.

Three-year-old Edward is part of an emerging allergy generation. Just one tiny spoonful of fish is enough to make his little body break out.

The minefield Edward's mum Claire faces is the same path trodden by one-in-10 Australians who suffer from food allergies.

"He was just miserable, with red rash all over his body, and I thought, 'My God, never again, that's the end'," Claire said.

"And I think he only had one small mouthful, so yeah, it was terribly distressing and there was nothing I could do about it."

"I just followed the advice I got from the hospital and books. I realised at some point I'm not supposed to give my children egg white until they're a year and strawberries for two years."

But it is this medical advice that's now being challenged by experts worldwide.

Dr Andrew Kemp is Professor of Paediatric Allergy at Sydney's Westmead Childrens Hospital.

"They're now questioning this idea that we should necessarily avoid all foods for a long period in childhood," Professor Kemp said.

"And, in fact, exposure to those foods may be helpful in allowing the person to become tolerant."

So where does this new information come from? Well, experts have looked at Israel, where babies from a young age chew on rusks - just like here, the only difference being their rusks contain peanut protein.

"It was found that peanut allergy in Israel is much less common, even though the children are getting exposed to peanut proteins early in life, than in societies such as the UK, where children aren't exposed to these things as readily and allergy to peanut is increasing very rapidly," Professor Kemp said.

Australia has one of the highest prevalences of allergic disorders in the developed world. A recent Access Economics report found allergies cost our economy nearly $8 billion a year in lost productivity and money spent in our health care system.

And it is on the march: there has been a doubling in the numbers of sufferers of food allergies and life threatening anaphylaxis over the last 10 years.

Associate Prof Mimi Tang is the director of Allergy and Immunology at the Royal Childrens Hospital in Melbourne. She believes our problem is twofold: not only are we too careful in keeping our babies away from allergenic foods, but she says we are also too hygienic.

It's this lack of exposure to good bugs early in life that scientists believe may trigger allergic responses.

"One of the most popular theories is it relates to the way we live in western societies," Professor Tang said.

"And perhaps it's related to the fact we're exposed to fewer microbial stimuli, fewer good bugs in the early years of life."

"By being exposed to a diversity of bugs in early life, it's thought to set the immune system at a lower level, such that it won't respond inappropriately to things in the environment or within the body. The problem with allergic disease is that the immune system has responded to things it shouldn't respond to, such as foods."

With this in mind, the Melbourne Children's Hospital is researching the effects of administering probiotic bacteria to mothers during pregnancy.

"To see whether that can protect against the development of allergic disease," Professor Tang said.

"And it is now a very exciting area of research, to see which bugs might be the right bugs, when is the right time to give these bugs and how much."

Both Associate Professor Tang and Professor Kemp believe advice to parents will change in the next few years.

"My opinion is that the advice we receive will be modified in the near future to say 'we don't know what's been advised in the past has been appropriate'," Professor Kemp said.

That may be the future, but what about now? A new peanut allergy vaccine is being trialled in the US by Dr Wesley Burks from Duke University.

"We're now at a point that we feel we have a product that will be safe to give them," Dr Burks said.

Because peanuts are so allergenic, it has taken years for scientists to modify peanut proteins to make them safe enough to be used in a vaccine.

"We've taken those allergenic portions out of it," Dr Burks said. "That's what we use for the vaccine, it's like a hypoallergenic peanut product."

In the meantime, sufferers can only pinpoint their allergies.

The latest test on the market is the Imupro. It tests the blood for Type 3 Igg antibodies of up to 272 different food types. Blood is taken at a pathology lab and sent to Germany for testing. It costs up to $1000.

With the peanut vaccine at least five years off, unfortunately for parents like Claire, for now it's more of the same.

"Anything to get rid of it, because at this age you have to watch them all the time, what they put in their mouth, when they go to birthday parties, wherever, it's a real problem," Claire said.