A small pilot study has shown that most of the children in a new oral immunotherapy treatment program were able to eat 100 grams of wheat bread without side effects, a promising way to mitigate the risk of accidental ingestion by people with this allergy. 

Wheat is one of the most frequent childhood food allergies - up to 35% of Spain by the age of 12, according to the authors. The most common treatment is avoiding eating wheat products, which can mean a nutritional imbalance for children. And then some products may have wheat despite the label. Though most allergens are not as serious as parents claim - a paper has published safe levels for 90 percent of allergic people with the 5 most common food allergies - people with a serious condition need to be on alert. Often, parents just forbid their allergic kids from eating any food without supervision, which isn't really helping anyone.

A collaboration of the Centre for Plant Biotechnology and Genomics (CBGP-UPM-INIA), along with the Allergy Department of the Hospital Infantil Universitario Niño Jesús of Madrid, aim to find new treatments for this allergy.

The study used six children allergic to wheat. They underwent oral immunotherapy consisting of dispensing increasing doses of wheat. Five of the studied children successfully finished the treatment after 24 days, and all the patients had tolerance to 100 grams of daily wheat after six months, meaning they can eat wheat and derived products due to accidental ingestion without harm

Citation: RODRÍGUEZ DEL RIO, P.; DÍAZ-PERALES, A.; SÁNCHEZ-GARCÍA, S.; ESCUDERO, C.; DO SANTOS, PATRICIA; CATARINO, M.; IBAÑEZ, M. D. “Oral Immunotherapy in Children With IgE-Mediated Wheat Allergy: Outcome and Molecular Changes”. Journal of Investigational Allergology and Clinical Immunology, 24 (4):240-248; 2014.