Peanut allergy cured in majority of children in immunotherapy trial • Hacker News Board

Re: Peanut allergy cured in majority of children in immunotherapy trial

#51

Post by ghaff » Thu, Aug 17, 2017, 1:25 PM UTC

beagle3 wrote: post #36

ghaff wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd have to convince me that lobster is a Veblen good. Yes, it's often priced as a luxury good once you get away from the New England coast--and sometimes even there--but that's not the same thing as saying higher prices increase demand. I expect the restaurant selling $25 lobster rolls would sell more if they were a more reasonable $12 but they might not make as much money. I do like lobster when the price is reas…

Higher prices increase demand are called giffen goods iirc. Veblen goods are goods that people buy to signal their higher status. (No opinion on whether lobsters outside of New England are Veblen goods. Am vegetarian)

They both have inverted demand curves. Veblen goods because of status or because price becomes a signal. Giffen because of substitution effects.

It's not clear that Giffen Goods actually exist.

Re: Peanut allergy cured in majority of children in immunotherapy trial

#52

Post by bkovacev » Thu, Aug 17, 2017, 1:26 PM UTC

nikolay wrote: post #38

bkovacev wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People look at me weird sometimes when I tell them we usually drink our yogurt. In Serbia we have different types of yogurt some more thick (the westernized with flavor), yet some runny/less thick. But sour milk (kiselo mleko for us) is always of same texture and we eat it with a spoon. So, my question is - do Bulgarians drink their yogurt or do they eat it with a spoon?

We eat yogurt ("кисело мляко") only with a spoon - it's not liquid. We drink ayran ("айрян"), which is yogurt diluted with water yogurt with added salt. There's also kefir ("кефир"), which is liquid, but it is not Bulgarian at all.

Gotcha. Ayran is something I will definitely try if I visit! Yes, I'm familiar with Kefir and it's sort of the same as our version of yogurt, but Kefir has a bit stronger/more "recognizable" taste!

Re: Peanut allergy cured in majority of children in immunotherapy trial

#53

Post by DataWorker » Thu, Aug 17, 2017, 1:39 PM UTC

sethammons wrote: post #17

agumonkey wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not from the anecdote, I had many many allergies and they appear much more if I'm in a stressful or unfamiliar context.

Stress is not just a mental state. There are real, physiological changes, such as rising cortisol levels. To say that it is just a "psychology dependent" situation is to say it is all in your head.

Only if you don't realize how psychology involves and implies biology.

Re: Peanut allergy cured in majority of children in immunotherapy trial

#54

Post by DataWorker » Thu, Aug 17, 2017, 1:41 PM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #33

agumonkey wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't mean to imply mental problems, but emotion can trigger imbalances in how your system produce and regulate this molecules.

that's not psychology, that's neuroscience, and while generally observed, the phenomenon you describe isnt understood.

Stress isn't psychological? Think about what you are saying!

Re: Peanut allergy cured in majority of children in immunotherapy trial

#55

Post by throwaway5752 » Thu, Aug 17, 2017, 1:55 PM UTC

ljf wrote: post #46

rhexs wrote: post #32

Does anyone know the history of why allergists assumed this just wouldn't work for decades? I'm assuming they initially tried this at the dawn of the allergist specialization but gave up due to bad practices / deaths? I only ask because it seemed to have been general knowledge that this was impossible / couldn't be done up until recently. As a outsider looking it, it seems quite obvious, but that's just due to naivet…

I'm relatively 'new' to allergies, but from some of the conversations with doctors there was a fear that repeated reactions (even minor) could be priming the body for worse reactions. This obviously goes against the results we are seeing now, but don't forget this is a very new area of study - people were only first diagnosed with food allergies in the 60s. The original trial (I believe) came from a study that saw a…

I don't think it's powdered peanuts. My understanding is that in Israel, a snack food called Bambas (peanut butter flavored corn puffs) is widely given to children and allergists noticed a huge difference in childhood peanut allergies. It's changed peanut exposure recommendations for infants completely.

Re: Peanut allergy cured in majority of children in immunotherapy trial

#56

Post by alextheparrot » Thu, Aug 17, 2017, 1:58 PM UTC

rhexs wrote: post #32

Does anyone know the history of why allergists assumed this just wouldn't work for decades? I'm assuming they initially tried this at the dawn of the allergist specialization but gave up due to bad practices / deaths? I only ask because it seemed to have been general knowledge that this was impossible / couldn't be done up until recently. As a outsider looking it, it seems quite obvious, but that's just due to naivet…

When I was in school, allergens were taught as follows (This also explains why people presumed it would fail):

1) Your body "sees" this, meaning it has antibodies that react to it

2) Cells whose antibodies are activated replicate, as they are recognizing something that is, to the body, presumably foreign and bad

3) Because you now have more cells after the originals replicated, the effects of the allergy worsen as you are now more reactive than before

I'd be interested to see some tests on this. I have a few hypothesizes that we could test:

1) If the children are still reactive to immunological tests (Meaning they still have the antibodies!), are those antibodies being blocked by another compound, another cross-reactive antibody? Another idea is that the actual immune response to antibody activation (Recognizing peanuts) might be handled differently within the cells that produce the actual response to the allergen (Swelling and stuff).

2) If the antibodies no longer exist, I would start looking in the areas where immune cells develop to see if cells producing reactive antibodies to the allergen are being killed off during development (This process is also why you don't kill yourself with antibodies recognizing yourself). If that isn't the case we need to track individual immune cells over the course of treatment.

Re: Peanut allergy cured in majority of children in immunotherapy trial

#57

Post by sageikosa » Thu, Aug 17, 2017, 2:03 PM UTC

6d6b73 wrote: post #24

sageikosa wrote: post #3

When in her teens, my daughter developed a peanut allergy during her time in drum corps such that it was confirmed with skin patch tests and she had to carry an epi-pen. After about a year it just went away and she's back to "normal".

Did she changed her diet in that time? Personally I noticed that the diet is what really drives the allergies. What's more, my son developed dog allergies, and we were about to give up our dog, but before that we decided to change the diet of .. the dog. Believe it or not, after 6 months my son is no longer allergic to our four-legged family member, but also to most other dogs.

She first noticed that she was feeling sick and started eliminating foods until we guessed it was the peanut butter sandwiches she was eating for lunch on tour. She did see an allergists who confirmed (with pretty obvious evidence) the reaction to peanuts.

She stopped eating peanuts for about a year, then gradually found she was capable of eating them again (her favorite candy was Reese's peanut butter cups, so a heartbreaking year that was). My belief is she is more cautious on the volume and frequency of her consumption now, but is otherwise unrestricted.

My guess was always that she must've had some low-grade infection (viral or otherwise) and the response was also broadly interacting with the proteins in peanuts.

The immune system isn't a designed system, it's a series of responses (and the ability to generate new response) that we broadly call a system because the net effect is as if there were some dynamic thing protecting us. Sometimes it just does its thing without regard to the segmentation faults it creates.

Re: Peanut allergy cured in majority of children in immunotherapy trial

#58

Post by sageikosa » Thu, Aug 17, 2017, 2:04 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #11

Lewton wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how you got that from the anecdote

It's not from the anecdote, I had many many allergies and they appear much more if I'm in a stressful or unfamiliar context.

Probably hormonal or sympathetic nervous system responses helping that along.

Re: Peanut allergy cured in majority of children in immunotherapy trial

#59

Post by ljf » Thu, Aug 17, 2017, 2:11 PM UTC

throwaway5752 wrote: post #55

ljf wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm relatively 'new' to allergies, but from some of the conversations with doctors there was a fear that repeated reactions (even minor) could be priming the body for worse reactions. This obviously goes against the results we are seeing now, but don't forget this is a very new area of study - people were only first diagnosed with food allergies in the 60s. The original trial (I believe) came from a study that saw a…

I don't think it's powdered peanuts. My understanding is that in Israel, a snack food called Bambas (peanut butter flavored corn puffs) is widely given to children and allergists noticed a huge difference in childhood peanut allergies. It's changed peanut exposure recommendations for infants completely.

Could well be - I read that article some time ago, so likely misremembed the detail. Cheers

Re: Peanut allergy cured in majority of children in immunotherapy trial

#60

Post by dperfect » Thu, Aug 17, 2017, 2:11 PM UTC

rhexs wrote: post #32

Does anyone know the history of why allergists assumed this just wouldn't work for decades? I'm assuming they initially tried this at the dawn of the allergist specialization but gave up due to bad practices / deaths? I only ask because it seemed to have been general knowledge that this was impossible / couldn't be done up until recently. As a outsider looking it, it seems quite obvious, but that's just due to naivet…

This is especially confusing to me given the fact that immunotherapy (allergy shots) for hay fever has been used effectively since at least the 1930s[1]. I've heard that it may be due to the severity of a possible reaction to peanuts compared to that of (most cases of) hay fever, but I'm guessing that's probably not the full story.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allergen_immunotherapy