Effect of acid treatment on allergenicity of peanut and egg.

BACKGROUND: Many food experts have studied various treatments or processing techniques in order to develop hypoallergenic foods. In a previous study, acid treatment dramatically mitigated the allergenicity of peanut, especially Ara h 2. RESULTS: Gel electrophoresis showed that most protein bands of acid-treated peanut were not detected, but protein bands of egg white became weaker and broader by acid treatment. In immunoblotting using a rabbit antibody, the antigenicity against ovalbumin or ovomucoid in acid-treated egg white was decreased but the antigenicity against Ara h 1 or Ara h 2 in peanut treated with pH 2 acetic acid was completely undetected. The allergenicity of ovalbumin and peanut fell significantly to 1/1022 and 1/5380, respectively, when measured as IC50 in the sample treated with pH 2.0 acetic acid. CONCLUSION: This study showed that acid treatment was more effective in peanut and barely effective in ovomucoid. This may contribute to the development of hypoallergenic food and clinical management of food allergy. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry.

The standard range of peak expiratory flow rates of Korean children.

BACKGROUND: The importance in asthma management of monitoring of peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) has been emphasized. OBJECTIVE: For effective asthma management in Korean children, we established reference ranges for the PEFR in children 4-18 years of age. METHODS: The Mini Wright Peak Flow Meter (MWPFM) and spirometry were used in this study. All tests were conducted using a standardized method recommended by the American Thoracic Society. RESULTS: From a total sample of 2389 children, 826 (34.5%) were excluded based on our exclusion criteria. For both sexes, the PEFR increased with height, age, weight, sitting height and body surface area (BSA). Height and BSA were found to be better predictors of PEFR than the other parameters. The correlation coefficient between FEV1 and PEFR using the MWPFM was 0.886 (p < .001). The reference values of PEFR for height in our study were higher for both sexes than for those previously reported in Korea (p < .005). When we compared our results with those from other countries, the values for boys of the same height were lower than those for European children, but higher than those for African and Turkish children (p < .001). CONCLUSIONS: We have established reference values for PEFR obtained by MWPFM in Korean children in Seoul, and have provided the percentile curves for PEFR as a function of height asthma to assist clinical practices in treating children with asthma in Korea.