A toothpaste that contains peanut proteins did not cause any serious side effects in people with an allergy to the food and showed early signs of preventing dangerous reactions
By Chen Ly
9 November 2023
Preventing allergies via toothpaste could be an easy approach, given that dental hygiene is part of our daily routine
Branislav Nenin/Shutterstock
A toothpaste infused with peanut proteins could help to prevent serious reactions in people with a peanut allergy. The treatment has passed a safety trial in adults, with the researchers now hoping to test how effective it is among children with the allergy.
Peanuts are one of the most common allergy-causing foods, affecting millions of people in the US and UK, says William Berger at the University of California, Irvine. “There’s a real unmet medical need and, other than avoidance, there are very few treatments available,” he says.
In a bid to fill that gap, Berger and his colleagues have developed a toothpaste that contains peanut proteins, in the hope it could train someone’s immune system to tolerate the food.
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To test its safety, the team enlisted 32 adults with a peanut allergy. Of those, 24 were asked to use the peanut toothpaste, while the rest were given the same toothpaste but without the peanut proteins, acting as a placebo. All of the participants were instructed to brush their teeth every morning for 2 minutes with a pea-sized amount of either the peanut or placebo toothpaste, and to use their usual toothpaste in the evening.
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At the start of the study, the peanut toothpaste contained just 1 milligram of peanut proteins per pea-sized dose, which was gradually increased over the 48-week trial to 80 milligrams – equivalent to the amount found in a third of a typical peanut.