❄️ A cold treatment against food allergies

A research team at McGill University has discovered that briefly treating peanuts with cold plasma — a gas charged with ions that causes chemical changes — can reduce their ability to trigger allergic reactions.

According to the researchers, this phenomenon is likely explained by changes in the structure of proteins, the components of peanuts that can trigger an immune response. The team also showed that this technology could improve certain functional properties essential for food product manufacturing.


"It is clear that this research benefits consumers with food allergies, who may soon have a wider choice of foods," says Vijaya Raghavan, co-author of the study and professor of bioresource engineering at McGill University. "Importantly, the approach used is not limited to peanuts. It could also be applied to other allergens, such as eggs and hazelnuts, significantly reducing allergy risks for a wide range of food products."

This research was led by Jin Wang, now a professor at Southeast University in China, while he was a doctoral student at McGill University.

Less allergenic, just as tasty

Worldwide, peanuts are an important source of plant proteins, and their properties are widely used in many food products. However, their allergenic nature poses a major challenge. Classic methods for reducing allergenicity rely on heat treatments that can alter the taste, aroma, and appearance of foods. Non-thermal approaches, such as irradiation, have yielded variable results.

Cold plasma is a solution that has been considered before, but for this study, the researchers extracted the whole peanut protein and treated the samples with cold plasma, then assessed their allergenic potential using several in vitro methods.

Among the properties evaluated was immunoreactivity, a measure of how strongly a protein binds to immune antibodies in laboratory assays, indicating its potential to trigger an allergic reaction.

"In real-life situations, consumers are exposed to the complex mixture of proteins found in whole peanuts, rather than isolated allergens," explains Vijaya Raghavan. "Our study therefore focused on whole peanut proteins and achieved a reduction of nearly 70% in overall immunoreactivity after 25 minutes of cold plasma treatment.

"This approach is most likely to have practical impacts, as it would allow food manufacturers to use hypoallergenic peanut protein powder to create new products," the researcher adds.

The study also showed that the treatment would facilitate the breakdown of the protein in the intestine.

Potential applications for other foods

While other researchers have noted the presence of hydrogen peroxide and nitrite as the main chemical agents in cold plasma treatment, the present study found only an increase in nitrite levels.

"These results suggest that, during treatment, nitrites play a predominant role in modifying protein structure. This aspect is often overlooked in applied research," says Vijaya Raghavan.

The team plans to study these mechanisms in more detail and optimize the effectiveness of this technology.

"We hope to apply this desensitization effect to a wider range of food allergens," he states. "By developing hypoallergenic ingredients with improved functional properties, we hope to meet the needs of many consumers while ensuring food safety and quality."