HONEY MEDIATED ORAL TOLERANCE TO SEASONAL ALLERGIES

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The study is designed to investigate whether locally produced honey can protect against seasonal allergies. Over the past year, we have recruited a total of 68 individuals who were divided into two equal groups. One group was advised to take one tablespoon of locally produced honey a day and keep a diary of their symptoms and other drug use over the allergy season, from March through October, 1998. The control group was asked not to take honey, but to take whatever medications they customarily ingest for relief of their symptoms. At the end of the allergy season (November) diaries were collected from all individuals. We are now in the process of entering the data from these diaries into a relationship database for analysis. During the next allergy season (March through November 1999) we plan to reverse the two groups (cross-over) and provide honey to the group that did not ingest honey during the previous allergy season. Both groups will be asked to take honey for the next year as well.