July 18/Baltimore/Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions -- Giving children with egg allergies increasingly higher doses of the very food they are allergic to can eliminate or ease reactions in most of them, according to results from a federally funded study conducted at Johns Hopkins Children's Center and four other U.S. institutions.

The research findings, published July 19 in The New England Journal of Medicine, add to a growing body of evidence showing that feeding escalating doses of a food -- an approach known as oral immunotherapy -- can, over time, condition the immune system to tolerate the food with minimal or no reactions. Recent, smaller studies conducted at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere have shown the approach can also be useful in treating children allergic to milk and peanuts.