allergies
dr. dolittle | June 28, 2017 Photo by Donnie Ray Jones from Flickr creative commons.
A recent study published in Microbiome from researchers at the University of Alberta shows that babies from families with pets had nearly two-fold increases in the amount of two specific microbes in their guts, Ruminococcus and Oscillospira. These particular microbes are associated with reduced risks of developing childhood allergies as well as obesity. According to study author Dr. Anita Kozyrskyj, “There’s definitely a critical window of time when gut immunity and microbes co-develop, and when disruptions to the process result in…
oracknows | December 21, 2015[NOTE added 12/23/2015: It would appear that the offending article has been taken down. I, of course, have screenshots, and, of course, the Google cached version is still around for the moment.]
Anaphylaxis can be deadly. Anaphylaxis can kill. More than that, anaphylaxis can kill pretty quickly.
Even the most dimwitted purveyor of "natural" cures should know that and stay away from "natural" treatments for anaphylaxis, while the smarter snake oil salesmen also know that you can't afford to mess around with a medical condition that can cause such rapid deterioration from seemingly perfectly…
pgleick | July 16, 2013
The evidence from real-world observations, sophisticated computer models, and research in hundreds of different fields continues to pile up: human-caused climate change is already occurring and will continue to get worse and worse as greenhouse-gas concentrations continue to rise.
Because the climate is connected to every major geophysical, chemical, and biological system on the planet, it should not be surprising that we are learning more and more about the potential implications of these changes for a remarkably wide range of things. And while it is certainly possible – even likely – that…
kbonham | May 15, 2013Every time I see an ad for some remedy that "Helps BOOST the Immune System!" I die a little inside. It's not just that these products are often homeopathic bull*, but (as I've mentioned before), boosting the immune system can actually be a terrible idea. The immune system is a finely tuned instrument, and too much can be just as bad too little. Too much immune activation leads to allergies and autoimmune disorders like multiple sclerosis (MS) or lupus. We don't know exactly why, but the prevalence of these "hyperinflammtory disorders," where the immune system is over-active, are on the rise…
kbonham | January 3, 2012In case anyone landed here after listening to this week's Savage Lovecast, I wanted to point you in the right direction. Please be gentle - that was my first time being interviewed for anything like that, so I was a bit of a nervous wreck.
For the uninitiated - a couple of weeks ago on his podcast, Dan Savage fielded a question from a woman that thought a chunk of mushroom managed to make it through her boyfriend's digestive tract untouched and end up in his ejaculate. Dan rightly dismissed this notion, saying that things don't go "from guts to nuts." This is certainly true for solid pieces…
kbonham | December 19, 2011I know this post has been a long time coming. In the first part of this series, I told you that allergies are the result of an immune response against an external, but normally not harmful substance. In part 2, I told you that allergies are the result of a specific type of immune response called "Th2," which leads to the production of IgE antibodies, and that this immune response is thought to have evolved to combat infections caused by worms. But what makes your immune system think it's supposed to be battling a worm?
The short answer to the questions is: we don't know. For other types of…
kbonham | November 17, 2011Earlier this week, I wrote a little bit about what causes allergic symptoms - your immune system confuses pollen (or some other allergen) for a worm, and then arms your granulocytic grenades to explode every time you come into contact with it. But why does this confusion happen? This is a bit more complicated.
As I mentioned in the first post, the immune system broadly speaking is geared for 3 types of infections:
1) Intracellular - these pathogens (all viruses and some bacteria like Listeria) live most or all of their life inside our own cells. In order to deal with them, the immune system…
kbonham | November 15, 2011One of my favorite places on the internet is r/askscience, a place on reddit where people come and ask questions, and a panel of scientists answer. People can ask follow-up questions, and there is often some great back-and forth (to be honest, part of the reason I haven't been writing as much here is because I'm using up all my time over there). Recently, an number of people have been asking questions about allergies - Can people grow out of allergies? Why is the incidence of allergies increasing? Can eating honey cure allergies?
You can check out those threads if you want answers to those…
sa smith | May 4, 2011Conceptually, its not excessively hard to understand how we develop allergies-- Our bodies generate an inappropriate immune response to a protein that wouldnt otherwise cause us any harm, whether its tree pollen or dust mites or peanut proteins.
But whats the deal with nickel allergies?
Nickel is a cation-- Ni2+. Our bodies are chock full of cations-- calcium, iron, magnesium, etc, and they dont cause any trouble (or youd be dead). And there are lots of other cations that dont hurt anyone (aluminum, silver, etc). Why Nickel?
Plus, Nickel is a metal. Its not a chunk of a protein, its a…
sa smith | April 7, 2011A couple of days ago, Orac directed us towards an article that is one of the funniest pieces of 'Science Journalism' I have ever seen, anywhere. See, those of us on the 'non-kook' side of things have marvelously eloquent writers like Carl and Ed, and inquisitive investigatory journalists like Trine. Sure theyre 'educational', but their work is depressingly devoid of 'WTF LOL!!' moments like this piece by an apparent anti-vax 'science' journalist, Sharyl Attkisson:
The author is Helen Ratajczak, surprisingly herself a former senior scientist at a pharmaceutical firm. Ratajczak did what…
sa smith | March 31, 2011Every Spring, you can count on a handful of posts here at ERV on allergies. Ive got em. I hate em.
But I recognize that in many ways, Im 'lucky' as far as allergies go. I only have to deal with them for a few months of the year, I can move somewhere else and not have to worry about them at all anymore, and even though my symptoms are annoying, they certainly arent life threatening.
Not everyone with allergies is this lucky.
Some people are allergic to 'indoor' things that are around year-round. And some of the 'indoor' stuff isnt as simple as not owning a cat-- some people are allergic to…
sa smith | March 2, 2011I love Oklahoma... except for one thing.
You might think that one thing has something to do with insane Christian Evangelicals or creepy perverted 'Conservative' Republicans, but really, you just get used to those sorts of things. I think I would genuinely miss them if they were gone.
No, the 'one thing' is... allergies.
As Ive loled about before-- I never had allergies until I moved to OK. Grew up surrounded by trees, but in Oklahoma, Im apparently allergic to tree pollen (I also think its funny that my dog also has allergies, to trees and grass. A DOG.)
Now normally I harass bug my…
jstemwedel | June 11, 2010This is a blog post that I more or less composed in my mind early this morning when, at 5 AM, I awoke with a runny nose and started sneezing.
Just like I have every morning at 5 AM for the past month and a half.
I do not, as far as I can tell, have a cold.
I do not experience the same runny nose or sneezing at other times of day.
Is it possible that I'm allergic to 5 AM? (People can't actually be allergic to a time of day, can they?)
Or, more plausibly (if only marginally so), is it possible that something about my circadian rhythms makes me more vulnerable to allergens in my environment…
tsmith | April 27, 2010Student guest post by Shylo Wardyn
"Of all the parasites I've had over the years, these worms are among the... hell, they are the best".
Was Fry from the animated show 'Futurama' right in his assessment of worms being good for him? Did he know something about parasitic worm infections that I was unaware of? Well, in the show, his parasites were doing remarkable things for his body, but does this translate to real life at all? Some people think so. Altman reviews the idea that over evolutionary time, our ancestors were infected with all sorts of parasites and this led to an interaction…
tsmith | February 26, 2010Student guest post by Shylo Wardyn
I recently read the book 'Good Germs, Bad Germs' by Jessica Snyder Sachs. I became intrigued by parts of her book that discussed how babies become colonized with bacteria during birth. The most interesting part was the differences between vaginally-delivered and Caesarean-delivered babies. It was not something I had ever thought of before. With my interest piqued, I did a Google scholar search to see what kind of research was being done on this topic. I stumbled upon an article looking at C-sections and risk of childhood allergies, namely asthma. I…
bcohen | December 23, 2009(Ten Best of the Decade from Half of the World's Fair)
This series began with the kindness of a friend who agreed to let me ask him about his book about Barry Commoner, science, and modern environmentalism. It then spawned a series of 17 interviews with authors of books in science studies, environmental history, the history of science, and all combinations in between. Every one of them was enjoyable to do; every author was generous and insightful. I've been able to use some of these as thumbnail sketches of readings I use in class. In that, they stand as the best example of blogging as a…