What is oral tolerance induction or food desensitization?
Oral tolerance induction consists of trying to get the allergic person to tolerate one or several foods in the quantities that are usually ingested by people who are not allergic to those foods. In cases where it is not possible to achieve tolerance to these amounts, the aim is to achieve tolerance to food doses that at least guarantee avoiding or minimizing the development of anaphylaxis, an allergic reaction produced by the ingestion of traces or food contamination during the manufacturing or handling process of all types of food.
It should be noted that oral tolerance induction is used for cases of food allergy, not for patients with food intolerance. These intolerant patients, who are often patients with lactose intolerance to milk lactose, have a deficiency or deficit of an enzyme, lactase. This protein is responsible for degrading lactose. This decrease cannot be corrected by this type of treatment. In fact, its treatment consists of avoiding the ingestion of foods containing lactose or any other type of components to which patients show intolerance, for example, sugars such as fructose.
What does the treatment consist of?
The treatment provided by the specialist in Allergology, consists of the regular administration and in increasing amounts of the food to which the person is allergic. Patients usually come for consultation once a week where they are orally administered a specific dose of the food and their tolerance is checked. This same dose is administered daily for one week at the patient’s home and one week later the patient returns to the clinic to check tolerance to a higher dose.
How long does it usually last?
The process is very variable depending on the severity/intensity of the allergy presented by the patient. A process that develops without major reactions usually lasts three months. In the most severe cases or with important reactions the process can be extended to periods close to a year.
What foods are being worked with?
The two foods with which oral tolerance inductions are most frequently performed in our environment are milk and egg. But tolerance inductions have also been performed with other foods such as wheat, soy, fish or nuts.
Is it possible to cure or correct an allergy?
In 80% of the cases the treatments achieve that the patient achieves tolerance to usual amounts of the food to which he/she is allergic (e.g. one egg or 200 ml of milk) or at least to smaller amounts that minimize the risk of anaphylaxis and allow people to follow a very close to normal diet.
Which patients can follow this treatment?
The treatment can be carried out in both children and adults, although most experience is focused on the former.
What is the follow-up of the patient during and after the treatment?
During the oral tolerance induction, the patient is given a series of rules on how to take the food, as well as an action plan to deal with possible allergic reactions that may arise during this induction phase. Both before, during and after completion of the induction process, the patient undergoes blood tests and skin tests that show the correct modification or normalization of the immune response that generates the allergic reaction.
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