A team of Irish, British, Dutch and Canadian researchers have identified a genetic change that can triple the risk of allergy to peanuts, a condition that could even be deadly.
The study of the group of researchers that established a link between some forms of allergy to peanuts and an hereditary gene defect that causes the formation of a protein called filaggrin, located in the granular layer of the epidermis, was recently published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
“I already knew that people who have a change in filaggrin are prone to eczema and that many of these persons are also at risk of peanut allergy. What I did not know and is now shown, is the defective presence of filaggrin in people who are allergic to peanuts without eczema. This demonstrates the clear connection between filaggrin and allergy to peanuts”, explains Professor Irwin McLean at Dundee University.
He stated however that such changes were not only related to filaggrin flaw, isolated in 20% of people with peanut allergy, and concluded that studies are still needed to be done in order to understand the link between genetics and peanut allergy.