Cheung and colleagues reports a survey conducted in 15 countries exploring the health and nutrition claims made in the marketing of infant formula products. The authors performed a systematic search of websites, examined packaging of formula products, and documented claims made about the formula product and citations of scientific evidence supporting those claims…
Health professionals and families lack the time to properly scrutinise claims. Industry is unlikely to change its practice given shareholder interests. Self-regulation has not worked, and responsible, ethical marketing by the formula industry seems unlikely.
Ich hatte direkt nach der Wende in Halle und Leipzig die erste Ost-West Allergiestudie* durchgeführt und dabei die verblüffende Entdeckung gemacht, dass es im Osten nicht mal halb so häufig Allergien gab.
Der Grund dafür war uns zunächst nicht klar, aber dann stelle sich doch bald heraus, daß es wohl die unterschiedliche Vitamin D Prophylaxe war – im Westen gab es tägliche niedrige Dosen ab der ersten Lebenswoche, im Osten wurde ab dem 2. Monat wenig hohe hohe Einzeldosen verabreicht. Wenn Kinder im Osten krank waren, dann fiel auch immer wieder die eine oder andere Dosis aus, auch wurde das Schema nach meiner Recherche nicht immer komplett durchgezogen. Leider haben wir uns damals aber nur die Impfpässe angesehen, nicht aber die im Nachinein wichtigeren Wiegekarten.
DDR Wiegekarte. Quelle https://www.ddr-museum.de/de/objects/1011262Westdeutsches Untersuchungsheft U2. Quelle https://www.g-ba.de/downloads/83-691-452/2017-05-11_GBA_Kinderuntersuchungsheft_Web-WZ.pdf
Die Befürchtung der Professoren Mai und Beuren in dem alten SPIEGEL Artikel über Vitamin D Nebenwirkungen haben sich zum Glück nicht bewahrheitet. Dafür aber stellte sich dann aber eine unerwünschte immunologische Wirkung heraus die damals noch nicht bekannt war.
Mit dem aus England bzw Amerika importierten Schema zur Supplementierung stiegen die Allergien an. In der BRD war das ab den frühen 60er Jahren , wie überhaupt die englischsprachigen Länder immer die höchsten Allergiehäufigkeiten hatten, da sie wegen der häufigen Rachitis auch viel konsequenter supplementierten (die Rachitis hiess früher einmal auch “englische Krankheit”).
Der Mechanismus der Allergieentstehung ist dabei nur teilweise aufgeklärt: Vitamin D ist jedenfalls immunsuppressiv mit vielfacher Auswirkung auf B und T Zellen was seit dem Nachweis des Vitamin D Rezeptors auf diesen Immunzellen wissen. Die Supplementierung stört offensichtlich die initiale Klassifikation ob ein Protein harmlos oder allergen ist.
Warum es aber auch schon 1989 Allergien im Osten gab? Nun, es war ja keine Vitamin D freie Zone, offensichtlich sensibilisiert man sich auch noch ausserhalb des überkritischen Intervals in den ersten Lebenswochen.
It seems that I missed an interesting 2017 paper that looked for disease-associated SNPs in canonical DR3 motifs. Only 7 out of 211 traits showed significant hits, one of these was self-reported allergy. When annotating these SNPs, there are only two genes: LINC00299 and TLR1
So are TLR1 & LINC00299 variant carriers more susceptible to vitamin D induced allergy?
LINC00299 (Long Intergenic Non-Protein Coding RNA 299) is a RNA Gene of largely unknown function, associated so far with allergy only on a genetic level in Framingham, href=”https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23817569/”>23andme and other studies. We don’t know so much here, the function of the long non coding RNAs
depends on subcellular localization. Depending on their niche, they specifically interact with DNA, RNA, and proteins and modify chromatin function, regulate transcription at various stages, forms nuclear condensation bodies and nucleolar organization. lncRNAs may also change the stability and translation of cytoplasmic mRNAs and hamper signaling pathways. Thus, lncRNAs affect the physio-pathological states and lead to the development of various disorders, immune responses, and cancer.
The TLR1 genetic association is found by many genetic studies, while the clinical association is probably more by an infectious origin. TLR1 is a pattern recognition receptor with a specificity for gram-positive bacteria and also included in my forthcoming exome paper as a protective factor for asthma/allergy. And we are also close to my earlier review of vitamin D, the microbiome and allergy…
Does any co-infection response during first vitamin D exposure influence allergic sensitisation? There are indeed some hints of an short-lived effect of lung group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s)
Laboratory mice cohoused for 2 weeks had impaired ILC2 responses and reduced lung eosinophilia to intranasal allergens, whereas these responses were restored in mice cohoused for ≥2 months. … These findings suggest that ILC2s respond dynamically to environmental cues and that microbial exposures do not control long-term desensitization of innate type 2 responses to allergens.
I have criticized in the past the milk industry sponsored research that is now operating at a similar scale like research funded by cigarette industry [1]. And well, it seems that I am not alone here when reading a new CEA paper “Are paediatric allergy services promoting or harming public health?”
There were increasing and excessive sales of specialized formula designed for infants with milk allergy—either extensively hydrolysed or amino acid formula. These represented 7.6% of formula sold in 2019 … Although pediatric allergy services cannot be held solely to blame for whole population trends, there is evidence that the clinical guidance used in pediatric allergy clinics might promote or exacerbate these trends. Moreover, many allergy, gastroenterology and pediatric societies and professionals routinely flaunt public health guidance from the World Health Organization by continuing to accept funding from formula companies, despite World Health Assembly resolutions that such conflictive relationships should be avoided.
Unfortunately there are now also many asthma trash papers from paper mills. Another example was identified by @gcabanac, distributed by @deevybee and published at Pubpeer.
In total there are 386 asthma entries at PubPeer. What is really happening in this field? When I started the field there was just one misconduct case – Ranjit Kumar Chandra. That’s an increase from 1 to 386…
What makes it even more complicated that there is no border anymore to predatory journals if also respected scientists drop their names at predatory journals. Only recently I received an email addressed to one of my former technical assistants as “professor” inviting her to send a paper…
Schön jedenfalls die vielen juristischen und historischen Einordnungen in diesem Twitter Thread. Es fehlt dabei nur Grafton
Die Fußnote, besonders die deutsche, wird oft für den Inbegriff langweiliger Wissenschaft, für einen Geheim-Code trockener akademischer Gelehrsamkeit gehalten. Doch das heißt, sie als Tummelplatz der Leidenschaften, als Schlachtfeld intellektueller Kämpfe zu verkennen. Anthony Grafton ist es unter Einsatz von zahlreichen Fußnoten gelungen, neues Licht auf ihr Schattendasein zu werfen und ihre dramatische Bandbreite darzulegen.
Geisteswissenschaftler lächeln gerne über den vermeintlich naiven Objektivismus der Naturwissenschaftler. Dabei ist die Geschichte der Naturwissenschaft der geisteswissenschaftlichen Konkurrenz in der Kritik der wissenschaftlichen Denkformen weit voraus. Thomas Kuhn regte Chemiker und Physiker an, nach der Geschichte von Versuchsanordnungen und Beweisverfahren zu fragen.
Again: The hygiene hypothesis was not born by David Strachan and well, there are more cracks of the hygiene hypothesis.
“The trouble is, as soon as you use the words ‘hygiene hypothesis,’ the word hygiene prejudges what the cause is,” says Bloomfield. To the public, “hygiene” is interpreted as personal cleanliness: washing hands, keeping food clean and fresh, sanitizing the home. However, because the hypothesis has been largely uncoupled from infections, the idea that we need to be less hygienic is wrong. Relaxing hygiene standards would not reverse the trend but only serve to increase the risks of infectious disease, says Bloomfield. The term “hygiene hypothesis” also fails to incorporate all of the other factors now linked to the increase in immunoregulatory diseases.
I expect that five years after mandating “super hygiene” during COVID-19 we can finally bury the hygiene hypothesis.
Just tried citationgecko.com on a topic that I have been working on for 2 decades. It will find rather quickly the source paper, much faster than reading through all of it. Unfortunately reviews are rated to be more influential than original data as Citation Gecko picks articles with many references.
Please see also an earlier comment on image duplications: While results do not change if authors are repeating images of the same object without notice, this is not providing independent evidence and therefore affecting the conclusions.
JACI is the journal with the poorest experience that I ever encountered as an author and as a reviewer. The editors never adequately responded to numerous errors in an earlier paper where I sent a long letter describing all details.
So let’s have a more detailed look at farm parents. It can be drilled down to the question if parents are also “protected” or it is more likely that some affected parents just moved away. Here are 13 studies that included information about farm parents. Continue reading Parental allergy history at farms→
A waste of time – has been said about other fields but applies to allergy research also when reading the review request of “Allergy” today. I have to keep the content confidential but not the comment of AI expert Jeremy Howard
It’s a problem in science in general. Scientists need to be published which means they need to work on things that their peers are extremely familiar with and can recognize an advance in that area. So, that means that they all need to work on the same thing. The thing they work on… there’s nothing to encourage them to work on things that are practically useful so you get just a whole lot of research which is minor advances and stuff that’s been very highly studied and has no significant practical impact.
