Nietzsche may have been thinking of emotional turmoil when he wrote “That which does not kill us makes us stronger,” but the quote could just as easily apply to a potential life science innovation — a cure for peanut allergies. Scientists testing a treatment on children have had positive results from the most unlikely source. Peanuts.

The idea behind the study was to gradually build up a tolerance by feeding children something their body rejects. Peanuts are technically not nuts and belong to the legume family that consists of lentils, soybeans and peas.

An article about the randomised controlled crossover trial of 99 children between 7 and 16 years old was published in The Lancet. It said the Cambridge University Hospital researchers found that using small doses of peanut flour, dubbed peanut oral immunotherapy, over a six month time frame helped 84 percent of children in the active group overcome their peanut allergy. They could eat five peanuts a day or 25 times the amount of protein they could consume before the study.

A description of the study in Discovery News quoted the leader of the study, Andrew Clark of Cambridge University Hospitals:

“The treatment allowed children with all severities of peanut allergy to eat large quantities of peanuts, well above the levels found in contaminated snacks and meals, freeing them and their parents from the fear of a potentially life-threatening allergic reaction.”

Allergic reactions to peanuts can range from minor to severe. Some people with the condition can go into life-threatening anaphylactic shock. Food allergies have forced schools to be vigilant as an estimated 400,000 school children have a peanut allergy, according to the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. The findings mean that children and adults with a peanut allergy could be better protected in the event that they accidentally ingest peanuts.