Reducing Food Allergy: Is There Promise for Food Applications?

Abstract

Food allergy is on the rise and has become a growing food safety concern. The main treatment is strictly avoiding allergens in the diet. However, this is difficult to do because foods are sometimes contaminated with allergens due to processing of different foods with the same machinery. For this reason, accidental ingestion of trace amount of allergenic proteins is common. For children with severe food allergy, this could be life-threatening. Food products with reduced allergenic proteins, if developed, could be beneficial and may raise the threshold of the amount of allergenic proteins required to trigger an allergic reaction. As a result, the number of serious allergic reactions may decrease. Moreover, such less allergenic products may be useful or replace regular products in studies such as oral tolerance induction or early exposure experiments, where children with severe peanut allergy are usually excluded due to their severe intolerance. This review focuses on recent findings and progress made in approaches to reduce allergenic proteins in foods. Modifying methods may include physical and chemical treatments as well as lifestyle changes and the use of supplements. We discuss the benefits and drawbacks these methods present for production of hypoallergenic food products and food allergy prevention.

Quantitative and kinetic analyses of peanut allergens as affected by food processing

“…enhanced lipid protein interactions). The protein may bind to lipids to form aggregates (Chung & Reed, 2014), which would make the extraction more difficult.…”

“…A high amount (as much as 55% of total protein, Table 1) of highly insoluble peanut residues still present after a two-step extraction (water/sodium phosphate buffer extraction followed by the standard electrophoresis SDS-sample-buffer extraction). The highly insoluble protein residue may bind tightly with carbohydrates or lipids after thermal processing (Chung & Reed, 2014). Total extractable peanut allergen content was calculated by taking the sum of water-soluble allergen (Fig.…”

“…Thermal and non-thermal processing methods are the two major strategies that have been used for allergen reduction in peanuts. The effects of thermal processing, including frying, boiling, steaming, roasting, microwaving and autoclaving, on allergenic properties of peanuts have been studied extensively (Cabanillas et al, 2012, Cabanillas et al, 2015, Chung and Reed, 2014, Maleki et al, 2000, Rao et al, 2016, Schmitt et al, 2009, Verhoeckx et al, 2015). Thermal processing may reduce or alter IgE binding due to degradation of allergens into small peptide fragments, and/or formation of aggregates, and interactions with other proteins, carbohydrates and lipids (Chung & Reed, 2014).…”

Definition und Design hypoallergener Nahrungsmittel

“…Zum aktuellen Zeitpunkt ist eine kommerzielle Vermarktung o. g. hypoallergener Nahrungsmittel nicht absehbar [18]. Das bisherige Gen-Silencing einzelner Allergene führt selbst bei vollständiger Suppression des einzelnen Allergens nicht automatisch zum vollständigen Verlust der Allergenität, da die meisten Nahrungsmittelallergiker auf mehrere Allergene in ein und demselben Nahrungsmittel sensibilisiert sind.…”

Peanut Allergens Attached with <i>p</i>-Aminobenzamidine Are More Resistant to Digestion than Native Allergens

“…The major peanut allergens are Ara h 1, Ara h 2, and Ara h 3. Methods for reducing the allergenic properties of these allergens have previously been reported [14]. Recent studies have also focused on the use of pulsed ultraviolet light, D-amino acids, and oleic acid to reduce peanut allergens [15] [16] [17].…”