Bread and pasta may be back on the menu for people with coeliac disease participating in a clinical trial next year.
Coeliac disease makes you unable to eat foods containing gluten without experiencing an immune reaction that damages your gut and can cause vomiting, diarrhoea and fatigue.
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A vaccine called Nexvax2 could change that. It contains synthetic fragments of gluten that can be recognised by the immune system, but don鈥檛 trigger a full immune reaction when introduced in gradually increasing doses. This teaches a person鈥檚 immune system to see gluten as harmless.
The vaccine has performed well in five small clinical studies. In one of these, eight people with coeliac disease given the vaccine were each able to eat nine gluten-containing cookies over three days without feeling sick or showing signs of inflammation in blood tests.
A larger trial of the vaccine in 146 people with coeliac disease is now under way and due to finish at the end of 2019.
Half of the participants will be injected with progressively stronger doses of the vaccine twice a week, for 16 weeks. The other half will get placebo injections instead.
The efficacy of the vaccine will be assessed by giving all participants a smoothie to drink containing as much gluten as in two pieces of bread. Each person鈥檚 symptoms and inflammatory blood markers will then be monitored.
Based on the results of earlier trials, Ken Truitt at ImmusanT, the US company developing the vaccine, is optimistic it will work. It could change the lives of the 1 per cent of people who have coeliac disease and currently have to remain vigilant for all sources of gluten, like wheat, barley and rye, he says.
鈥淥ur ultimate goal is to let people with coeliac disease eat an unrestricted diet,鈥� he says.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淣ews Preview 2019: Goodbye, Gluten-Free鈥�
