A clinical study commissioned by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) hopes to identify, for the first time, how sensitivity to peanut is altered by external factors including exercise and stress.

Peanut allergies affect 200,000 to 400,000 people, and approximately 1 in 50 children in the UK.

The three-year TRACE study will be led by Dr Andrew Clark, allergy consultant at Addenbrookes – part of Cambridge University Hospitals. 



Dr Clark, and his colleagues Dr Robert Boyle and Professor Steven Durham from Imperial College, Dr Isabel Skypala from Royal Brompton Hospital, and Professor Clare Mills from the University of Manchester, are looking for people with a peanut allergy to participate in the study for a year.

The researchers will invite about 100 peanut-allergic people from a cross-section of the population. These individuals will undergo challenges under varying conditions to find out how sensitivity to peanut is altered by external factors, including exercise and stress (which in this study will be caused by sleep deprivation).

According to Dr Clark, this study will be the first of its kind globally.

"It will not only bring reassurance to the thousands of people who are allergic to peanuts but offers a blueprint for improving food labelling for a whole variety of food," he says.

Sue Hattersley, head of food allergens at the FSA, adds: "This important study will inform food allergen labelling and improve advice to consumers to help them better manage their allergy."