A Cure for Food Allergies?
Anaphylaxis is the medical term for this life-threatening allergic situation. Symptoms can occur alone or together, including chest tightness or heaviness, swelling of face (or eyes, lips, mouth, tongue, or throat), confusion, difficulty breathing, fainting, vomiting, diarrhea, or the patient has an overall feeling something is terribly wrong, but cannot describe it.
Hospital emergency rooms get upwards of 300,000 patients with life-threatening food allergy reactions and about 200 die each year, according to Stephanie Desmon, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Institute (JHMI). Desmon released results from a food allergy cure study to NewswiseMednews.com in the article: Researchers Turn off Severe Food Allergy. She says JHMI researchers may have found a way to prevent anaphylaxis and a cure for millions of food allergy sufferers.
Can We Teach Our Bodies to No Longer Be Allergic?
The Johns Hopkins research team started with the question of whether or not we can teach our bodies to no longer be allergic. They changed a food protein known to cause allergies in mice by adding a special sugar. Their hope was that, when test mice ate the changed protein, those proteins would bond with special immune system cells, called SIGNR1 receptors.
If the bond was successful, test mouse immune systems might learn to tolerate the changed food protein. With this change, the protein might not induce allergic reactions anymore, even when consumed in its unmodified form, without the added special sugar. The mice were separated into test groups receiving the changed proteins, and control groups which did not receive the changed proteins.
It was found that the allergic reactions were far less serious in mice eating the changed proteins, than in mice eating only the unchanged protein. Even when mice eating the changed proteins were then given unchanged proteins to eat, their allergic reactions were not so bad. The lesser reaction seems to show that the changed protein ingestion helped to desensitize their allergies, according to Dr. Zhou. He says further research is needed to learn if the receptor SIGNR1 is capable of doing other helpful tasks.
Equally important to this study team are Johns Hopkins researchers Hirokazu Kawasaki, Shih-Chang Hsu, Reiko T. Lee, Xu Yao, Beverly Plunkett, Jinrong Fu and Yuan C. Lee. Together with team leaders, Dr. Huang and Dr. Zhou, their work continues. The JHMI research team is investigating whether or not the findings about SIGN1 and its bonding capabilities with certain sugars can be significant for treating and preventing serious food allergies in humans.
What Can an Allergic Person Do Right Now?
For now there is no cure for food allergies. Trying to avoid eating the offending food is the only prevention for a life-threatening anaphylaxis event. If Dr. Zhou and his colleagues are on the right track, their discovery could be a life changing or even lifesaving cure for millions of people. In the October 1, 2010 news release by Desmon of JHMI, Dr. Zhou says, "This could teach our bodies to create a new immune response and we would no longer be allergic to the protein."
Patients with serious food allergies should speak with a licensed nurse practitioner or physician about what they can do in the meantime should an offending food cause anaphylaxis.
Resources
Food Allergy Facts and Statistics at: http://www.foodallergy.org/downloads/FoodAllergyFactsandStatistics.pdf
Researchers Turn off Severe Food Allergy Reaction, by Stephanie Desmon, JHMI, from NewswiseMednews, October 1, 2010 at: http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/569145/?sc=mwhr&xy=10003235
Drug Allergies and Deadly Anaphylaxis at: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2829880/drug_allergies_and_deadly_anaphylaxis.html?cat=5
Lynn Pritchett, AC/YahooNews Featured Health Contributor - Personal Anaphylaxis Event Experience
Published by Lynn Pritchett
Lynn's dedication to writing at Yahoo Network is inspired not only by her professional background in health care (pharmacy) and in education (grades K to 12 special needs & general classroom), but by her dai... View profile
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