Category Archives: Allergy

PDF batch printing

13.04.2007 admin

I have been batch printing PDFs for years with the built-in macro function of the Adobe Reader. For any unknown reason this doesnÂ´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 canÂ´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

1: 2: 3: 4: 5: 7: @echo off set w=ping 127.0.0.1 -n 100 -w 1000 "c:\Programme\Adobe\Reader 8.0\Reader\AcroRd32.exe" & %w% for %%a in (*.pdf) do pdfp.exe %%a & %w%>nul & echo %%a printed pause exit

Allergy, Vitamins

The sunshine cure

11.04.2007 admin

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.

Allergy

CV Adelsberger

11.04.2007 admin 2 Comments

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 →

Allergy, Philosophy

Salutogenesis

10.04.2007 admin

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 →

Allergy, Genetics

Waiting to exhale

10.04.2007 admin

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 →

Allergy

MD5 converter

9.04.2007 admin

Allergy, Genetics

Divide and conquer

1.04.2007 admin

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 →

Allergy, Vitamins

Another path from vitamin D to allergy

26.03.2007 admin

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 CBFÎ², 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?

Allergy, Vitamins

Higher metabolic rate or better signalling

15.03.2007 admin

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 canÂ´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.

Allergy

Allergy research 1900-1933

13.03.2007 admin

Here is a brief summary of allergy research as an index to Schadewaldt

1900 Posselt (1:370; 4:44)
enteritis membranacea used synonymous to asthma

1902 Kratschmer (2:100)
hay fever is triggered by trigeminus reflex Continue reading Allergy research 1900-1933 →

Allergy

Climate change

11.03.2007 admin

There is no need for another diagnosis here. There is also no need about the impact of the automobile industry – I have published in 1993 the first large epidemiological study about traffic and respiratory health here in Munich.
What could we do? People need to move but need alternatives to public transport or 1000kg cars.

One such alternative is being the Swiss made twike Twike that I could get for a ride – excellent driving experience (quite fast too!) while needing only 0.5 l equivalent per 100 km. Although I am also attracted by recumbents and gyrocopters, this seems to be the best alternative ;-)

Allergy, Vitamins

Lymphopoetin and allergy

9.03.2007 admin 1 Comment

This is to convince me that the thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) is a master switch in allergy

15 Aug 2004

Skin-specific overexpression of TSLP resulted in an AD-like phenotype, with the development of eczematous lesions containing inflammatory dermal cellular infiltrates, a dramatic increase in Th2 CD4+ T cells expressing cutaneous homing receptors, and elevated serum levels of IgE.

5 Jun 2006

Topical application of the physiologically active ligand [1{alpha},25-(OH)2D3; calcitriol] of the vitamin D receptor, or of its low-calcemic analog MC903 (calcipotriol; Dovonex), induces TSLP expression in epidermal keratinocytes, which results in an atopic dermatitis-like syndrome.

22 Jan 2007

TSLP, synergistically with interleukin 1 and tumor necrosis factor, stimulates the production of high levels of Th2 cytokines by human mast cells (MCs) … TSLP is released by primary epithelial cells in response to certain microbial products, physical injury, or inflammatory cytokines.

23 Jan 2007

Proinflammatory TNFalpha or IL-1alpha and Th2 (IL-4 or IL-13) cytokines synergized to induce the production of TSLP in human skin explants … Our data provide the first evidence of TSLP induction and subsequent DC activation in human skin.

25 Feb 2007

Mice with an IEC[intestinal epithelial cell]-specific deletion of IKKbeta show a reduced expression of the epithelial-cell-restricted cytokine thymic stromal lymphopoietin in the intestine and, after infection with the gut-dwelling parasite Trichuris, fail to develop a pathogen-specific CD4+ T helper type 2 (TH2) response and are unable to eradicate infection. Further, these animals show exacerbated production of dendritic-cell-derived interleukin-12/23p40.

June 2007

… (TSLP) and interleukin-7 share a common receptor chain, IL-7RÎ± … The gene encoding the IL-7RÎ± chain is polymorphic, and investigation of inhalation allergic patients compared with controls showed significant association with two alleles at position +1237 and +2087.

Aug 2007

… TSLP represents a master switch of allergic inflammation at the epithelial cell and dendritic cell interface.

Allergy, Joke

Para alergia

5.03.2007 admin

Seen summer 1990 in a small village close to Bilbao.

Allergy, Vitamins

An update of the Barker hypothesis

27.02.2007 admin

Do you know the Barker hypothesis? It says that early life events may induce later disease. A new study in the Eur J Clin Nutr now reports

Children whose mothers had a 25(OH)-vitamin D concentration in pregnancy >75 nmol/l had an increased risk of eczema on examination at 9 months (OR 3.26, 95% CI 1.15â€“9.29, P=0.025) and asthma at age 9 years (OR 5.40, 95% CI, 1.09â€“26.65, P=0.038) compared to children whose mothers had a concentration of <30 nmol/l.

These are quite remarkable results. I wonder only why two forthcoming studies click + click using food frequency questionnaires will describe only a reduction of respiratory infection rates (which is not too bad in the context of the hygiene hypothesis) with no effects on allergy.

Food intake measures are probably not good enough for internal dose estimates as main source of vitamin D production is sunlight, isnÂ´t it?

Addendum

12 March 2007 – the long awaited AJCN paper is now out. I have already feared that stratification by FFQ is only partially relevant. Indeed, the authors could have used also college graduate level which increased with intake catgeories 1-2-3-4 from 53-74-80-82% with all the problems by SES dependency (and not corrected for in model 2+3 in table 2 or model A…D in table 3). The discussion seems to be also far away from being an objective report on the immunology of vitamin D actions…

Allergy

Notes on asthma in Africa

27.02.2007 admin

I have just found our most recent PLOS paper about asthma in Africa being published online

As of the 1980s, there was an overall conviction that asthma had an anthropogenic origin with indoor and outdoor air pollution as the main culprits. Following some overinterpreted epidemiological findings of the â€œhygienicâ€ phase, there is now evidence accumulating that the asthma epidemic might have an iatrogenic origin. There might not only be indirect effects of improved living standards and better medical care, there are even direct effects under discussion, for example by oestrogens, vitamin D, antibiotics, and paracetamol. Infant formula (which contains vitamin D) has already entered the food chain in Africa; paracetamol is the most common drug bought over the counter in Ghana. Do African countries offer any unique observations where singular effects of these drugs can be delineated?

An independent review (that I did not know at time of writing) arrived at similar conclusions. We all, however, forgot to mention sensational news as Gambian president Yahya Jammeh can heal asthma click – click – a more serious appraisal click.

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