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Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

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Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#231

Post by onli »

namibj wrote: post #230
onli wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My question exactly. To be fair, for hay fever the therapy was offered. And reading it up back then, the treatments against animal hair are often not successful, and they have a certain risk. Plus no standardized medication, so there are problems with keeping the exact dosage needed. All that combined made me conclude that not wanting to lead such a treatment is not a completely unreasonable position for a doctor. On…

For cats, just feed them egg from chickens that live with cats, as the egg has antibodies against the allergen in cat saliva, and the egg will cause those to get neutralized before the cat spreads them to its fur. There are commercial products for this that have such egg powder.

It seems that is basically the same mechanism as the Purina Live Clear cat food? That one we tried, and did not notice a definitive effect. What did help was keeping the cats out of the bedroom, and later being pregnant removed the allergy so far almost completely for her ;)

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#232

Post by Terr_ »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #226
nostrademons wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bambas are recommended in the U.S. as well, but our kid entered anaphylaxis after eating just 5 bambas his first time, at about 6 months of age. It's certainly possible to have a peanut allergy despite early exposure. Recommendation in the U.S. is now for pregnant women to eat peanuts to expose the fetus in utero, but even this doesn't always work. Kid is desensitized now after a year of oral immunotherapy, so add us…

It's not just about early exposure to allergens, it's also early exposure to pathogens. There's a growing body of research that constant disinfection of hands and surfaces is what really caused the allergy outbreak. Humans need to prime their immune systems with exposure to pathogenic bacteria at an early age so that it can learn to fight them and not other substances which leads to allergies.

> it's also early exposure to pathogens

Careful, that's not really been proven. There's an enormously important difference between these two theories:

1. The individual human immune system needs to be calibrated by wider exposure to... actual pathogens.

2. The individual human immune system needs to be calibrated by wider exposure to... benign bacteria that we've co-evolved with. ("Old friends" [0].)

Those involve very different plan of treatment and associated risks, and there's no guarantee the riskier one will give better results.

[0] https://www.news-medical.net/health/Old-Friends-Hypothesis.a...

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#233

Post by jack_riminton »

SquareWheel wrote: post #218
jack_riminton wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of a system is what it does. If they make money by identifying allergies and then treating those people for those allergies, as opposed to parents giving their children 2 peanuts a week, then their livelihood is under threat. If kids were left to get dirty and put the occasional thing in their mouth, which kids have been doing since the dawn of time, then there wouldn’t be such an allergy problem

> If they make money by identifying allergies and then treating those people for those allergies, as opposed to parents giving their children 2 peanuts a week, then their livelihood is under threat. I find that view to be overly pessimistic, and not reflective of what health care providers actually do. Practitioners of all sorts work hard to cure and prevent diseases every day. Every time a cancerous tumour is remove…

I’m not saying the individuals are evil or making any moral claim at the individual level at all, I’m talking about the system and the behaviours that are incentivised.

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#234

Post by hammock »

User23 wrote: post #135
hammock wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does the peanut and egg allergy come from? My understanding is that peanut oil and egg albumin are ingredients in many common medicines given early to infants.. is there any chance that could be contributing?

It does make you wonder if we shouldn’t vaccinate until exposing the children to solid foods in ordinary healthy cases. The mother’s antibodies from her milk do good work. There are other commenters warning about skin exposure before dietary exposure. If that’s true then it would make sense.

If you say certain words you get downvoted but I’ve found people seem to keep an open mind more if you use words like “medicine” that don’t immediately challenge deeply held beliefs

Interesting point about the skin exposure, I’ll go back and review those comments. Evolutionarily/practically i would think it’s tough to get oral exposure to something prior to skin exposure (it hits your mouth/hands/face before your stomach), unless the breastmilk vector you mention is critical

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#235

Post by moffkalast »

hilbert42 wrote: post #168

When I was a kid in Australia decades ago we'd never heard of peanut allergies and swapping peanut butter sandwiches at school was the norm. No doubt there were allergies back then but what on earth has made them so much more common these days? Same with asthma. Something has gone terribly wrong.

Well there's that theory that a reduced exposure to infections during the first few years of life causes the immune system to overreact to harmless things. Modern sterile environments are quite the opposite of kids playing in the dirt a century ago. Not sure if that theory still holds though.

Then there's the genetic component, if you had allergies before epipens and ambulances it was pretty likely that you just, well, died, the first time you got exposed to the allergen. Today people with dozens of deadly allergies live relatively normal lives, and are able to make those genes propagate further. This goes for most genetic problems really, any ones we can treat will eventually become massively more prevalent than before.

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#236

Post by supertofu »

OJFord wrote: post #192
spacebanana7 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard that consuming honey from your local variety of bees can help - but the evidence base isn't great [1] [1] https://www.honeyshoney.co.uk/blogs/news/local-honey-and-hay...

I think this myth might stem from people not getting hayfever, moving away from where they grew up, and then suddenly getting hayfever and attributing it to where they moved to. But the truth is it just can be (frequently is I believe) adult onset (20s very typical I believe). At least, that was my experience, I blamed Cambridge, then moved back or even when I visited before that had it just as bad in the town I grew…

The only time in my life I've ever had hay fever was when I was 15 taking a summer program in Oxford. I'm from California. Never had hay fever again. I think I'm just allergic to England.

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#237

Post by supertofu »

t0mas88 wrote: post #115
cwoolfe wrote: post #105

Nuts are a very good and healthy natural snack; it's a shame they are banned by most daycares and schools now. It would be great if this became so common they could be allowed again. Without nuts...what do we have instead? Chips. granola-bars. These are highly processed foods that have other issues. Raisins or apples maybe? but they are mostly sugar. None of these options have healthy fat & protein like nuts do. What…

Oh wow, are nuts banned from US schools? Never heard of that in NL or UK. The only food requests we get from daycare and primary school are to provide healthy snacks for birthday celebrations instead of sugary. And that's a friendly request not a rule.

Peanuts are uncommon on domestic flights in the US for the exact same reason they are banned in most elementary schools here.

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#238

Post by supertofu »

jorvi wrote: post #144
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We evolved to be constantly dirty And infested with worms. Most allergies are caused by the antibody we evolved to fight worms (and venom) [1]. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5010491/

Reminds me of people having intestinal auto-immune diseases treated with helminth therapy.

I have colitis and helminth therapy is on my Last Resort list. There are a limited number of drugs to treat the condition, and insurance doesn't cover many of them.

The facebook group for DIY helminth therapy is a fascinating place, let me tell you. But there are several possible species of helminths to try. It's all a bit overwhelming.

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#240

Post by mastazi »

pantalaimon wrote: post #206
mastazi wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is health insurance a common thing in Germany? Don't they have universal health care?

Universal Health care is via public health insurance. You can pick from several public providers, but the price is basically fixed and deducted directly from your salary/payed by the state if you’re unemployed. There is a 2nd system of private insurance providers. Those tend to get you preferential treatment at doctors because they pay them more than the public insurance which has fixed rates, but they will hike pric…

Interesting, thanks for explaining
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