Posted on 05/22/2010 4:41:40 AM PDT by decimon
About 30 percent of Americans believe they have food allergies. However, the actual number is far smaller, closer to 5 percent, according to a recent study commissioned by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Thats due in large part to the unreliability of the skin test that doctors commonly use to test for food allergies.
MIT chemical engineer Christopher Love believes he has a better way to diagnose such allergies. His new technology, described in the June 7 issue of the journal Lab on a Chip, can analyze individual immune cells taken from patients, allowing for precise measurement of the cells response to allergens such as milk and peanuts.
Using this technology, doctors could one day diagnose food allergies with a simple blood test that would be faster and more reliable than current tests, says Love, an assistant professor of chemical engineering. With a large number of diagnoses, its ambiguous, he says. A lot of times its almost circumstantial whether youre allergic to one thing or another.
(Excerpt) Read more at web.mit.edu ...
Ping
I thought this article was 40 years old or something.
They have been diagnosing allergies via blood tests for at least 27 years and continue to do so today.
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