Allergy (or at least an associated trait) may have its roots somewhere in Africa – where helminth infections are frequent. A new Nature Immunol Review has an overview but I am quite disappointed. From the abstract Continue reading Wormy world
Category Archives: Allergy
Allergy research in Germany 1935
During my visit last week in Berlin, I found a remarkable letter, that corrects some misbeliefs about the allergy prevalence at that time. Here is my transcript – use Babelfish to translate it. Continue reading Allergy research in Germany 1935
Random number
Does my partner cause my allergy?
A funny question answered in Allergy.
After adjustment for age, sex, parental predisposition and social status, the risk of hay fever was more than double in subjects who lived together with a partner having the same disease (odds ratio 2.4 […]). If subjects lived together with an affected partner, the risk of developing the disease increased with the time the partners lived together (1-11 years, OR 1; 12-23 years, OR 1.8; 24-35 years, OR 7.4; 36-54 years, OR 13.7).
Whatever that means – improved recall, shared doctor, non random mating, shared food, transmissible agent in descending order – it has been noticed already 40 years ago by Montgomery Smith and Lloyd Knowler in the Am Rev Resp Dis 1965; 92:16:
Filaggrin makes its way
A 3rd paper in nature genetics details the filaggrin gene structure: exon 3 has 10 repeats (as well as three variants FLG8+, FLG10+, FLF8+10+) and 15 SNPs – one of the few success stories in allergy research. In the discussion section, they ask the rhetoric question:
This study raises questions of interest to the complex trait field. Would SNP tagging of these multiple, relatively rare alleles, with frequencies no greater than 0.013, have readily identified this particularly strong susceptibility gene?
Nay, nay.
When are we being sensitized?
JACI has a paper in press that addresses this important question. The background is that allergen induced T-cell reactivitiy has been shown in cord blood – a strong argument that sensitization occurs transplacentally. Genotyping of these cells confirmed their fetal origin. It is unclear, however, if this is only a transient (normal?) reaction – and mothers want to know if they need to avoid for example peanuts during pregnancy. Rowe et al. now arrive at a clear conclusion Continue reading When are we being sensitized?
PDF batch printing
I have been batch printing PDFs for years with the built-in macro function of the Adobe Reader. For any unknown reason this doesn´t work anymore with my current OS / PDF / printer combination. The printer queue is always stuck or even detaches. I have therefore looked for a solution to delay the printing process. Most print utilitites do not help as I can´t delay spooling of print jobs. Here is my final solution – I am starting Acrobat first and send by DDE in long intervals a print command via pdfp
print.cmd
|wj_print.cmd|
The sunshine cure
Nature medicine news has a short text about the sunshine cure.
The strongest evidence available is perhaps for the vitamin’s protective role in MS. Several studies have documented a dramatic ‘sunshine belt’ […] Latitude also seems to play a role in the incidence of hormone-dependent cancers. […] The effect is almost certainly because of vitamin D, Feldman says. “People tend to think it can’t do all these things when it’s a vitamin,” notes Feldman. “It’s not a vitamin, it’s a hormone.”
As always there seems no fun without risk. We could add links to arteriosclerosis and allergy.
CV Adelsberger
I have completed today the collection of all writings of Lucie Adelsberger, a well known allergy specialist in pre-war Berlin before she was sent to Auschwitz. The following CV is taken from her thesis in 1920: Continue reading CV Adelsberger
Salutogenesis
I am still thinking about coping and resilience, and have read again Antonovsky‘s salutogenesis concept of a continuum between health and disease.
If we are not lucky to find any risk factor Continue reading Salutogenesis
Waiting to exhale
Waiting to exhale was a book in 1992 (“Right now I am supposed to be all geeked up”). Waiting to exhale then was a movie in 1995 (“Friends are the people who let you be yourself… and never let you forget it”). And finally Waiting to exhale was the title of a meeting report 1995 Continue reading Waiting to exhale
MD5 converter
Divide and conquer
Science has an interesting paper that relates to an earlier post here and a central question in immunology. How do T cells differentiate int both short-lived effector cells (that combat infections) and long-lived memory cells. Continue reading Divide and conquer
Another path from vitamin D to allergy
As far as I know vitamin D3 influences only RUNX2 expression (RUNX2 has a VDRE, possibly also RUNX3 but not RUNX1?). The RUNX factors
colocalized in common subnuclear foci. Furthermore, RUNX subnuclear foci contain the co-regulatory protein CBFβ, which heterodimerizes with RUNX factors, and nascent transcripts as shown by BrUTP incorporation. These results suggest that RUNX subnuclear foci may represent sites of transcription containing multi-subunit transcription factor complexes.
Variants in RUNX1 have already been reported earlier to be weakly associated with IgE serum levels in Korea.
A Nature paper todays reports that Foxp3 controls Treg function by interacting with AML1/RUNX1 – is there any connecting path?
Higher metabolic rate or better signalling
In a forthcoming paper in Allergy (scienceblog:doi:10.1111/j.1398-9995.2007.01437.x:) we will show an association of vitamin D (25-OH-D3) serum levels and allergic rhinitis (AR) mainly in white Caucasians. Here is a supplemental figure that shows the seasonal variation in AR+ and AR- individuals.
Except of the singular peak in white children, I can´t see so much difference – so probably the vitamin D signalling pathway is different in AR.
Figure: Month of examination in allergic rhinitis patients of NHANES III by age age and ethnic background – no clear effects by higher metabolism.
