A Spiegel online article yesterday about a study of indoor and outdoor housed pigs attributes the results to the development of allergy
Kinder vom Land haben demnach ein besseres Immunsystem und weniger Allergien als Stadtkinder, weil sie früher Kontakt haben mit all den Bakterien, wie sie in Tierställen vorkommen.
Unfortunately the original paper finds something completely different Continue reading Clean pigs and less clean journalism
The new BMJ has an interesting letter on current vitamin D research
We are concerned that, in some areas of medicine, too much emphasis is placed on analysis and reanalysis of a limited amount of trial level data, rather than on the design and conduct of informative RCTs in relevant populations.
yea, yea.
Given my sceptical view that ORMDL3 is really an asthma gene (that may be even shared by the authors of the initial association) the train has now departed with more groups speculating about ORMDL3 function.
For example this new paper by Gerard Cantero-Recasens is about the unfolded protein response (UPR) that may be triggered by a putative loss of function mutation in ORMDL3 via a Ca2+ decrease in the ER. Although I am quite intrigued about the fact that the story now moves to calcium and vitamin D, we are far away from any conclusive evidence.
And here is another paper that associates ORMDL3 to the sphingolipid metabolism. Although that may be also an interesting pathway (given a bulk of literature not cited in the paper ( more, more, more, more) I still wonder if this is wishful thinking. The authors do not touch the main problem – the weak connection of some genomic variants in that region to ORMDL3 function to asthma pathogenesis.
A new Thorax review finds
The hypotheses have arisen from a desire to explain epidemiological differences, and those such as the “hygiene” hypothesis had a seemingly corroboratory immunological explanation. However, they have not taken us to the point where we can proudly announce a primary preventive strategy.
I agree with the last statement but have severe doubts on any “immunological explanation” Continue reading Tired of the hygiene hypothesis
All scientists are currently at the Wiesn… (not to mention all the alternatives in Bavaria: Gillamos, Barthelmarkt, Volksfest Straubing, Karpfhammer Fest, … Continue reading Wiesn 2009
was die Welt zusammen hält… Continue reading Collegium logicum
The title says it all – the link goes to to the add-ons page, a very handy template Continue reading Consort study diagrams available with Omnigraffle
If you are writing some kind of online diary your mood is already surveilled by wefeelfine.
However, if you are an allergic patient, you may be interested in a new project of the German Pollenstiftung that runs an online pollen diary. We have pollen counts for a long time but we do not know so much about thresholds and individual variation.
Continue reading We feel good
There is a new website showing the history of some memes. I wish we would have something similiar at Pubmed. The vitamin hypothesis at least seems to take off (with the data for 2009 being a projection).
There is a new review on vitamin D and allergy.
Reading that piece carefully, I fear that expertise in one area does not guarantee Continue reading More heat than light
Yes, we know “slow virus is good for your lab as it keeps your lab running” with similiar mechanisms are being found in many research areas. Best of all – declare everybody as diseased (or at least at risk) like seen Continue reading Pandemy of vitamin D deficiency
A new study of 5 year old children relates their current allergy symptoms to LOW maternal intake of vitamin D from food (which is strange within the context of current cohort studies that show a INCREASED risk by vitamin D supplement use).
As this is a diabetes study, the sample is highly biased Continue reading Neverending story – vitamin D in pregnancy
A new review [Allergy (2009) vol. 64 (3) pp. 348-353] examines the evidence that
(1) failure to up-regulate the interferon gamma (IFNg) response during infancy is an important determinant of the risk of allergic disease
(2) expression of the IFNg gene in naive T-cells is regulated by epigenetic mechanisms, and
(3) failure to up-regulate IFNg gene expression of naive T-cells associated with low early life microbial exposure.
If we replace “microbial exposure” with Continue reading 1, 2, 3
or briefly vitamin D3. There seems to be another vitamin D /allergy abstract at the forthcoming EAACI congress from the KOALA study. The authors find
Risk for AD was highest for children in the fourth quintile of maternal 25(OH)D level [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 2.08; 95%CI 1.07-4.03] compared to those in the third quintile; P for trend over the quintiles 0.03]. Continue reading (1S,3Z)-3-[(2E)-2-[(1R,3aR,7aR)-7a-methyl-1-[(2R)-6-methylheptan-2-yl]-2,3,3a,5,6,7-hexahydro-1H-inden-4-ylidene]ethylidene]-4-methylidene-cyclohexan-1-ol