New research from Australia found that 80% of children with a peanut allergy who were given boiled peanuts as part of a controlled study were cured of their allergy. The condition affects up to one in 50 children and one in 200 adults, says Study Finds. Any contact with peanuts could trigger a reaction or even anaphylactic shock, which leads parents to be super vigilant with their children’s food. Boiling the peanuts helps destroy the proteins that trigger allergies. However, researchers stress that parents should not try to duplicate this study at home.

Scientists from Flinders University conducted a trial involving dozens of children between ages six and 18 and found that feeding them boiled and then roasted peanuts desensitized most of them to peanuts.

“Oral immunotherapy using boiled followed by roasted peanuts represents a pragmatic approach that appears effective in inducing desensitization and is associated with a favorable safety profile,” said the study authors in a media release. The clinical trial was published in Clinical & Experimental Allergy.

The study involved 70 children with peanut allergies who received 12-hour boiled peanuts for 12 weeks, two-hour boiled peanuts for 20 weeks, and roasted peanuts for 20 weeks, to a target maintenance dose of 12 peanuts daily.

At the end of the trial, 56 of the 70 participants, or 80%, became desensitized to peanuts. Treatment related adverse events were reported in 43, or 61%, of the participants, three of whom withdrew from the trial. Researchers said that after a longer-term follow-up, about 96% of participants continued to eat peanuts without incident.

Food allergies are rising fast in the Western world with peanut allergies being the most common, says Study Finds.

“Only one in five children grow out of their peanut allergy, with avoidance and medications the recognized mainstay of treatment for many years,” the study authors said. “However, avoidance of peanuts provides many challenges for children and their parents, given peanuts are widely present in many foods and there remains risk of contamination of many products during manufacturing processes,” the team added, according to Study Finds. “This requires children and parents to be hypervigilant regarding peanut ingestion and creates a significant burden on children and families.”

Most current therapies involve using tiny amounts of carefully prepared peanut flour, but this can be pricey and isn’t available in all healthcare systems. The new technique of using heat to destroy the allergy-triggering protein was well tolerated by the participants and generated “promising results,” according to the researchers.