Epinephrine Evolution: New Developments in Food Allergy Treatment

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You’re listening to On the Frontlines of Food Allergies on ReachMD. On this episode, we’ll discuss the recent epinephrine advancements for food allergies with Dr. Ruchi Gupta. Not only is she a Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, but she’s also the Founding Director of Northwestern’s Center for Food Allergy and Asthma Research. Let’s hear from Dr. Gupta now.

Dr. Gupta:

If you do have anaphylaxis or a severe allergic reaction, it’s really important to administer epinephrine right away. And currently, we have had advances. We have different epinephrine types. We have the EpiPen. We have the Auvi-Q, which talks to you and walks you through it; it’s shaped a little different. We have generic epinephrine. 

But what’s exciting in this space is that two companies are coming out with a nasal epinephrine. So, you know, what we’ve noticed over the years is a lot of people have some needle fear. It’s also a little hard to carry because they’re bigger. Well, now there’s going to be more options. And the third one is a sublingual epinephrine, so it’s a little tablet you put under your tongue to administer the epinephrine. So that’s really exciting for many people who have food allergies to have other options to administer epinephrine if they have a reaction. 

One of the other big advancements is we have prevention. So not exactly treatment, but we know now that in infants, if we introduce peanut and egg—we’re learning more about the other foods—early in an infant’s diet—so not the first food, but very soon after around that four- to six-month period—we can prevent these allergies from happening. 

And so much more research is happening in our lab here in Chicago and in labs all over the world, and I really think this is an amazing field that’s moving so fast and giving so much hope to people with food allergies.

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That was Dr. Ruchi Gupta talking about the latest epinephrine advancements for food allergy treatment. To access this and other episodes in our series, visit On the Frontlines of Food Allergies on ReachMD dot com, where you can Be Part of the Knowledge. Thanks for listening!