Food allergies are a common occurrence in childhood and can pose severe, even fatal, risks. Researchers at National Jewish Health are spearheading efforts to develop a programme aimed at preventing food allergies.

In this regard, they developed the skin tape sampling technique, which is noninvasive and gentle for these very young patients.  The superficial proteins on the skin and the lipids bind to the tape, and then the tape was extracted to study the details of what is found on the skin. Children were clinically monitored until they reached two years of age to see if allergies would develop.

The study is published in the Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology, skin tape strips were collected from the forearms of newborns at the age of two months— an age before there are any signs of food allergies.

“We know that the immune system underneath the skin alters the skin barrier. With our painless skin tapes, we know if proteins sitting on the surface of the skin are abnormal,” said Evgeny Berdyshev, PhD, a researcher at National Jewish Health and first author of the study. “If there were abnormal lipids and abnormal proteins on the skin, that is an early sign of what can eventually lead to atopic dermatitis and food allergies.”

“Ultimately, we want to identify people at risk for food allergy and address skin barrier abnormalities early to prevent the development of these conditions,” said Donald Leung, MD, head of the Division of Pediatric Allergy & Immunology in the Department of Pediatrics at National Jewish Health, and senior author of the study.