I called in on the review of our food allergy and intolerance research programme yesterday. We carry out formal reviews of our research programmes every five years, where we ask a panel of independent experts help us evaluate the success of the programme against the stated aims and objectives. I used to head the division that funded this work, so it was interesting for me to see how it's getting on. I was impressed with the progress we have made on estimating the prevalence of food allergy and intolerance in the UK using different cohort groups. Reported adverse reactions to foods are common, but diagnosed rates using skin prick tests and double blind placebo controlled methods are much lower (eg, about 1.5% for peanut allergy in young children), although in population terms this is a significant number. The work done on gaining a better understanding of the immunological aspects of food allergy, such as the role of peanut-specific T cell responses and the role of IgG, was also impressive.
Looking forward, there are many challenges, but two stand out for me. First, understanding better the route and timing of exposure to food allergens (we are jointly funding a randomised control trial of early introduction of allergenic foods to induce tolerance in infants). And second, finding a way of identifying thresholds for food allergens so that instead of labelling lots of foods with 'may contain nuts' when there may only be trace contamination, we can increase the choice of foods available to allergenic consumers.
Why not have a look at the range of projects we are funding in this programme and let us have your thoughts on how this programme should be developed?