Allergies
Cell-associated HIV mucosal transmission: The neglected pathway
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Dr. Deborah Anderson from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and her colleagues are challenging dogma about the transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). Most research has focused on infection by free viral particles, while this group proposes that HIV is also transmitted by infected cells. While inside cells, HIV is protected from antibodies and other antiviral factors, and cell-to-cell virus transmission occurs very efficiently through intercellular synapses. The Journal of Infectious Diseases (JID) has devoted their December supplement to this important and understudied topic.
The 10 articles, four from researchers at BUSM, present the case for cell-associated HIV transmission as an important element contributing to the HIV epidemic. Anderson chides fellow researchers for not using cell-associated HIV in their transmission models: “The failure of several recent vaccine and microbicide clinical trials to prevent HIV transmission may be due in part to this oversight.”
Approximately 75 million people in the world have been infected with HIV-1 since the epidemic started over 30 years ago, mostly through sexual contact and maternal-to-child transmission. A series of vaccine and microbicide clinical trials to prevent HIV transmission have been unsuccessful, and scientists are returning to the drawing board to devise new approaches. The JID supplement advocates for new strategies that target HIV-infected cells in mucosal secretions.
Study ties breathing problems, asthma to bone loss
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People with asthma-related breathing problems may be at increased risk for bone loss, according to a new study.
The study examined the records of more than 7,000 adults in Seoul, Korea, and found those with a certain characteristic of asthma had significantly lower bone density in a region of their spine than those without asthma symptoms.
The characteristic, called airway hyperresponsiveness, means the airways in the lungs are particularly sensitive, and it doesn’t take much to trigger an asthma attack.
However, both men and women with airway hyperresponsiveness were still in the normal range for overall bone density, on average. And researchers couldn’t say whether the asthma symptoms or the bone loss came first or what linked the two.
Slowing the allergic march
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A pandemic of ailments called the “allergic march”—the gradual acquisition of overlapping allergic diseases that commonly begins in early childhood—has frustrated both parents and physicians. For the last three decades, an explosion of eczema, food allergies, hay fever, and asthma have afflicted children in the United States, the European Union, and many other countries.
What causes the march and how to derail it has remained elusive. Now, in this week’s Nature, David Artis, PhD, an associate professor of Microbiology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and a team of collaborating international scientists, identified that expression of the protein TSLP may influence susceptibility to multiple allergic diseases by regulating the maturation of basophils, an uncommon type of white blood cell. Specifically, TSLP elicits the maturation of a population of distinct basophils that promotes allergic inflammation.
“A fundamental question regarding the allergic march is if a child has eczema, for example, which is associated with TSLP production in skin cells, why would some of those children subsequently be more susceptible to other allergic diseases at different sites of the body such as the gut or the lung?” asks Artis. “Although we have known that TSLP is associated with allergic diseases for many years, how this biological messenger might influence multiple allergic diseases has been a puzzle.”
Special infant formula may not prevent allergies
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Despite pediatric guidelines endorsing “allergy-friendly” whey-based infant formulas, a new study finds the products don’t ward off allergies in babies at high risk for sensitivities.
Babies with a family history of allergies to foods or environmental allergens who were fed Nestle’s NAN Hypoallergenic whey product after they stopped breastfeeding were just as likely to develop allergies later as children who were fed milk or soy formulas, researchers report in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
The “findings do not support the recommendation that (the whey formula) should be used after breast-feeding as a preventive strategy for infants at high risk of allergic diseases,” wrote Adrian Lowe and colleagues at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia.
Protein associated with allergic response causes airway changes in asthma patients
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Changes that occur in the airways of asthma patients are in part caused by the naturally occurring protein interleukin-13 (IL-13) which stimulates invasion of airway cells called fibroblasts, according to a study conducted by researchers at Duke University. The study is the latest effort by researchers to better understand the processes that are involved in airway remodeling that can cause breathing difficulties in patients with asthma. The findings were published online ahead of the print edition of the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
“In the present study, we show for the first time that airway fibroblasts, isolated directly from patients with asthma and stimulated with IL-13, invade in significantly greater numbers than those isolated from normal control subjects,” said Jennifer Ingram, PhD, assistant research professor of medicine at Duke University.
“In this novel mechanism of airway remodeling in asthma patients, IL-13 acts in combination with other mediators produced by cells in the airways: transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1), which causes cellular changes, and matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), which act to break down proteins,” she added. “Together, these agents cause cellular changes that lead to loss of lung function in asthma patients.”
Features of the metabolic syndrome common in persons with psoriasis
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Individuals with psoriasis have a high prevalence of the metabolic syndrome, according to a report posted online today that will appear in the April 2011 print issue of Archives of Dermatology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
According to background information in the article, individual features of the metabolic syndrome include obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes and high total cholesterol and triglycerides. Additional background information notes that while past studies have suggested a link between psoriasis and individual components of the metabolic syndrome, there is little data available regarding the association between psoriasis and the metabolic syndrome as a whole.
Using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, Thorvardur Jon Love, M.D., of Landspitali University Hospital, Reykjavik, Iceland, and colleagues, examined the association between psoriasis and the metabolic syndrome. The study included 6,549 individuals, and the mean (average) age of participants was 39, half were men and the mean body mass index (BMI) was 28.
Landmark Study Shows Suboptimal Asthma Care
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Researchers assessed asthma burden and treatment practice in the U.S. based on results of the recently completed Asthma Insight and Management telephone survey in a new study presented at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology annual meeting in Phoenix, Nov. 11-16. The asthma survey, the most comprehensive in the U.S. in the past 10 years, reported 73 percent of patients experienced asthma symptoms or an asthma attack in the past 12 months, 63 percent were affected by asthma throughout the year, and 41 percent believed their asthma was interfering with their life. Authors conclude that “despite the availability of asthma management guidelines and effective asthma treatments, asthma care is inferior, underscoring the need for improved patient education and use of written action plans.”
Title: Patient-Reported Asthma Burden and Treatment Practice in the United States: Results of the Asthma Insight and Management Survey
Lead Author: Eli O. Meltzer, MD, ACAAI Fellow
Asthma and Eczema Sufferers Have a Lower Risk of Developing a Cancer
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Men who had a history of asthma or eczema generally had a lower risk of developing cancer, according to a study carried out by researchers at INRS–Institut Armand-Frappier, the Research Centre of the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal, and McGill University. The findings, published in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, show that male eczema sufferers had a lower risk of lung cancer while those with a history of asthma had a similar effect in relation to stomach cancer.
“Asthma and eczema are allergies brought about by a hyper-reactive immune system – a state which might have enabled abnormal cells to have been eliminated more efficiently, thereby reducing the risk of cancer,” explained Professor Marie-Claude Rousseau of the INRS–Institut Armand-Frappier, one of the co-authors of the research.
The researchers analyzed information that was collected in a study on exposures in the workplace and the risk of developing cancer, undertaken between August 1979 and March 1986. It involved 3,300 men, between 35 and 70 years of age, who had been diagnosed with cancer in one of Montreal’s 18 hospitals, and a control group of 512 people from the general population who did not have cancer.
Does breastfeeding protect against asthma?
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Sticking to a strict diet of mom’s milk during the first 4 months of life may reduce a child’s risk of developing asthma by their eighth birthday, according to a new study.
“Breast milk is the optimal food for infants during the first months of life,” lead researcher Dr. Inger Kull of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, told Reuters Health in an email. “But whether or not breastfeeding reduces the risk of asthma has been debated.”
Through her milk, a mother transfers “good” bacteria, antibodies and proteins that can help thwart infection. But the evidence for how breastfeeding might influence the later development of asthma remains confusing, with various studies suggesting protective, neutral and even detrimental effects.
Sleep apnea as common as asthma in German kids
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A new German study suggests that about 3 percent of school-age children may have the nighttime breathing disorder sleep apnea—similar to the country’s rate of childhood asthma.
The findings suggest that there needs to be greater awareness of sleep apnea as a problem among children, researchers report in the European Respiratory Journal.
Obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA, occurs when the soft tissues at the back of the throat temporarily collapse during sleep, causing repeated breathing interruptions. The major symptoms include loud snoring and daytime sleepiness owing to a lack of deep sleep at night.
Rates of food sensitivity vary by country
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People in Portland are more likely than those in Iceland to be sensitive to certain foods, but reactions to fish, eggs and cow’s milk appear rare in both places, new research suggests.
The study, of more than 4,500 adults from 13 Western countries, found that nations varied in the rate of people who were sensitive to at least one food—ranging from about 25 percent of those in Portland, Oregon, to just under 8 percent of those in Reykjavik, Iceland.
However, countries tended to be similar in the specific culprit foods.
Association Discovered Between Eczema in Early Childhood and Psychological Problems
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Association Discovered Between Eczema in Early Childhood and Psychological Problems in Children at Age 10 Years
Neuherberg, February 10., 2010. Eczema in early childhood may influence behavior and mental health later in life. This is a key finding of a prospective birth cohort study to which scientists of Helmholtz Zentrum München contributed. In cooperation with colleagues of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU), Technische Universität München (TUM) and Marien-Hospital in Wesel, North Rhine-Westphalia this study followed 5,991 children who were born between 1995 and 1998. The study has been published in the current issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology 125 (2010); 404-410.
Researchers, led by Assistant Professor Jochen Schmitt of Dresden University Hospital, Dr. Christian Apfelbacher (Heidelberg University Hospital) and Dr. Joachim Heinrich of the Institute of Epidemiology of Helmholtz Zentrum München, discovered that children who suffered from eczema during the first two years of life were more likely to demonstrate psychological abnormalities, in particular emotional problems, at age ten years than children of the same age who had not suffered from the disease. “This indicates that eczema can precede and lead to behavioral and psychological problems in children,” Dr. Heinrich explained.
Sweet! Sugared Polymer a New Weapon Against Allergies and Asthma
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Scientists at Johns Hopkins and their colleagues have developed sugar-coated polymer strands that selectively kill off cells involved in triggering aggressive allergy and asthma attacks. Their advance is a significant step toward crafting pharmaceuticals to fight these often life-endangering conditions in a new way.
For more than a decade, a team led by Bruce S. Bochner, M.D., director of the Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, has studied a unique protein known as Siglec-8. This protein, whose name is an acronym for Sialic Acid-binding, Immunoglobulin-like LECtin number 8, is present on the surfaces of a few types of immune cells, including eosinophils, basophils and mast cells. These different cell types have diverse but cooperative roles in normal immune function and allergic diseases. When functioning correctly, they are a valuable aid to keeping the body healthy and infection-free. However, in allergic reactions and asthma attacks, the cells unleash an overwhelming response that typically harms the body more than it helps.
Traffic pollutants may fuel adult asthma: study
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A new study provides more evidence that breathing in traffic-related pollutants is unhealthy—for kids and adults.
The study, report in the journal Thorax, suggests a link between asthma that develops in adulthood and increased exposure to traffic-related pollutants. Previous research linked childhood-onset asthma with traffic pollutants.
In the current study, researchers looked at associations between traffic-related air pollution and “new-onset” asthma among 2725 Swiss adults. None of them had ever smoked.
Scientist First to Characterize Novel Syndrome of Allergy, Apraxia, Malabsorption
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A landmark study conducted by Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland is the first to reveal a new syndrome in children that presents with a combination of allergy, apraxia and malabsorption. Autism spectrum disorders were variably present. Verbal apraxia has until now been understood to be a neurologically based speech disorder, although hints of other neurological soft signs have been described. The new study, led by Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland scientist and pediatric emergency medicine physician, Claudia Morris, MD, and Marilyn C. Agin, MD, a neurodevelopmental pediatrician at Saint Vincent Medical Center in New York, however, suggests that the symptoms of verbal apraxia are, at least for a sub-group of children, part of a larger, multifactorial, neurologic syndrome involving food allergies/gluten-sensitivity and nutritional malabsorption.
“While it is critical to treat verbal apraxia symptoms that often include severe delays in expressive speech production with speech therapy, we need to start asking why these kids are having these problems in the first place so that we can identify mechanisms we can actually target to treat the cause of the symptoms,” says Dr. Morris.
Published in the July/August issue of Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, the new study takes a major step toward identifying the potential mechanisms that may contribute to apraxia symptoms. In the study, Dr. Morris collected information from nearly 200 families with children who suffered from verbal apraxia in order to better characterize the symptoms and metabolic anomalies of a subset of children.
