Category Archives: Allergy

Finally the ß2 receptor

The full crystal structure of the ß2 receptor is now clear after many attempts for its low natural abundance – with the extracellular domain still difficult to resolve (more on the relevance of the mutations depicted in Fig.1 in my recent Lancet editorial). Interesting: the effects of mutations on distant sites by breaking off van der Waals interactions like I135 that disrupt a ionic lock simply by a more loosely packed molecule.

GPS for biological pathways

After running a dual core CPU for two weeks I have a list here of all transcripts that are associated with the “ORMDL3” SNP gene cluster. Making sense from this list is a difficult task even with dozen of dedicated websites.
To get an overview of what is available I would start Continue reading GPS for biological pathways

Do not stand between me and the sun

Diogenes, “the Cynic,” Greek philosopher, was born at Sinope about 412 BC, and died in 323 at Corinth, according to Diogenes Laërtius.
Do not stand between me and the sun – the vitamin/allergy story is getting confusing with the new JACI review. Continue reading Do not stand between me and the sun

Can you see these neat little fingers

mucosa3.png
… reaching into the intestinal lumen? They belong to dendritic cells and are depicted also in a nice review about immune responses to commensal and environmental microbes Continue reading Can you see these neat little fingers

Eat peanut to avoid peanut allergy

There is a new comment in the BMJ about a Lords committee report

a number of recent epidemiological studies had indicated that early peanut consumption in countries such as Israel was associated with a low incidence of peanut allergy in the population. These observations had led many academics to say that exposing a child’s immune system to peanut allergen at an early age might result in tolerance.

It seems that allergen avoidance versus sportively exposure is a never ending story – forth and back and back and forth – and largely irrelevant as being only about the second line of defense?

Archie Cochrane speaking

I did not expect what a new Cochrane writes on the prevention of nutritional rickets in term born children — Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2007 concludes

There a only few studies on the prevention of nutritional rickets in term born children. Until new data become available, it appears sound to offer preventive measures (vitamin D or calcium) to groups of high risk, like infants and toddlers; children living in Africa, Asia or the Middle East or migrated children from these regions into areas where rickets is not frequent. Due to a marked clinical heterogeneity and the scarcity of data, the main and adverse effects of preventive measures against nutritional rickets should be investigated in different countries, different age groups and in children of different ethnic origin.

May I summarize: 1. only a few studies; 2. vitamin D OR calcium and 3. to high risk kids only. This looks different to what Nestlé manufactures at the moment.

Auto desensitization

Blackley found already in 1873 an interesting explanation of the “no allergy in farming children” effect by referring to some kind of auto desensitization in this particular environment – e.g. the high pollen and LPS exposure.
Do you know that a commercial allergen preparation used for desensitization already includes a LPS derivate, 3-o-desacyl-4′ monophosphoryl lipid A as an adjuvant? It is believed to push the pollen reaction into a IL12 – IFNg – Th1 pathway. This therapeutic approach already perfectly fits the early explanation of Blackley.
When will the allergy farming lobby ultimately close their files?

Contrary or Contradictory

A forthcoming “Perspectives in asthma” paper in “JACI” by Litonjua and Weiss will be about the vitamin D hypothesis. Although the authors find that

Evidence exists that vitamin D induces a shift in the balance between TH1 and TH2-rype cytokines toward TH2 dominance

they make a largely unexpected turn by saying that vitamin DEFICIENCY may be to blame for the asthma epidemic. The basic argumentation is

We hypothesize that as populations grow more prosperous and more Westernized, more time is spent indoors and there is less exposure to sunlight leading to vitamin D deficiency…

Given the immediate and effective vitamin D production in skin and its longterm availability by fat stores I cannot follow their last conclusion. Continue reading Contrary or Contradictory

The history of vitamin D discovery, industrial production and marketing

There is a new German dissertation about Vigantol (R) excellently written by Jochen Haas and just published at Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft “Vigantol, Adolf Windaus und die Geschichte des Vitamin D”. Altogether 425 pages, it contains a biographical sketch of Windaus (p 32-83), a detailed summary of the juristical questions about irradiating ergosterin (p 96-154), a detailed history of the pharmaceutical production (p 155-238) and finally a chapter about marketing of different brands by Merck (p 238-281). Continue reading The history of vitamin D discovery, industrial production and marketing

Historical research on hayfever

It seems that Google has several interesting books that may be downloaded if you are using a proxy located somewhere in the U.S. A. It is quite interesting to see that there are many more books out there than I thought before:

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Most interesting is certainly the 1880 2nd edition of Blackley’s “Hay fever” Continue reading Historical research on hayfever

Why the allergy epidemic did not already start 1935 in Germany

moblog – I have now spent another day at the Berlin Document Center browsing through hundreds of RKI pages – manuscripts, correspondence, bills and personal files. My goal was to find out why the allergy epidemic did not already start off 1935 in Germany when vitamin D synthesis was already possible on a large scale.
Indeed, I found evidence that at least 3 companies radiated at that time yeast derived ergosterin by UV quartz lamps – I.G. Farben, Nordmark-Werke and Deutsche Vitamin Gesellschaft. The number of companies in this field Continue reading Why the allergy epidemic did not already start 1935 in Germany

DNA to heal asthma?

A new nature medicine review has listed clinical trials targeting toll-like receptors. These including 3 preclinical studies using cpG-ODNs against TLR9 by Dynavax Astra-Zeneca, Coley / Sanofi-Aventis and Idera / Novartis. Lets wait and see…