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Finland's National Allergy Program Successfully Reduces Allergic Diseases

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Re: Finland's National Allergy Program Successfully Reduces Allergic Diseases

#91
post #23

Welp. I had a carpet floor in my bedroom as a kid, but that didn't prevent me from developing the badest allergy to dust mites as a teen. It recently got so bad that I started a hyposensitization treatment. Hopefully in 3-5 years it'll get better.

I was about to ask whether it worked then I finished reading your comment.

This reinvigorated phase of allergies in my late 30s is so much hell. I just wish I am able to get some kind of safer “cure”. Safer than those steroid based nasal sprays (which not always work) and those oral antihistamine. I sometimes think whether there has been not enough research in this field because it’s not fatal? Or maybe not too many people are badly enough affected by this?

Re: Finland's National Allergy Program Successfully Reduces Allergic Diseases

#93

There is more to it than this. My children have had severe food allergies since birth: we know this b/c they had reactions to breast milk based on what mom would eat. The also have had eczema since birth and one developed life threatening asthma at one year old. His trigger is the normal cold virus which he is constantly exposed to. With that said, however, my kids are filthy all the time and play outside constantly…

The hygiene theory also doesn't make 100% sense to me, I had no food allergies, no pollen allergies or asthma as a kid. Then in my late 20s, I got an egg allergy bad enough to require an epipen, as well as seasonal allergies, both out of nowhere. I used to eat eggs several times a week, and now I have the type of egg allergy now where I can't even eat baked eggs, so no muffins, brioche bread, cookies, etc.

The immune system is a complex, only partly understood system, and there isn't a single unifying solution to all of its edges. Broad understandings don't necessarily translate to individual cases.

At some point your immune system faced an adversary and conquered it, but one of the signatures it learned from the enemy encounter unfortunately also matches some molecular component of eggs. There is evidence that some people come out of norovirus infection with an egg allergy, for instance. Similar to how a bite from a lone-star tick can give you a meat allergy.

All sorts of auto-immune diseases can be kicked off by relatively benign things, and often we might never discover the cause. Our immune system learned the heuristics of something, but it's too broad so ends up looking too much like our thyroid glands, nerve myelin, pancreas, etc.

Maybe one day we'll be able to enum all of the signatures an immune system has learned and delete some of them.

Re: Finland's National Allergy Program Successfully Reduces Allergic Diseases

#94
post #6

The hygiene hypothesis [1] is real. Let kids play in the dirt, otherwise they'll develop severe allergies to innocuous substances. Early development is when the immune system trains on what is actually harmful. If you don't stimulate it, you wind up with pollen and peanut allergies instead of parasite and bacteria immune responses. From the paper: Primary prevention Support breastfeeding, with solid foods from 4–6 mo…

> Antibiotics should only be used in cases of true need This is going to be a big deal in the next 20 years. I’m from a third world country and the usage of antibiotics is SO irresponsible. People take them (and give them to their children) as candy.

Consider the Pharmaceutical Advisor custom GPT for advice on which pharmaceutical medications could be relevant for a given issue. You may have to tell it the name of the country in question so it can tailor its recommendations.

https://chatgpt.com/g/g-67ccde8fedd48191a1cb1131bc42b6e1-pha...

Also remember to check Drugs.com or a similar site for dosage, side effects, and interactions.

Re: Finland's National Allergy Program Successfully Reduces Allergic Diseases

#95
post #2

For me this link results in a 503 I've read the gist of this article in my local news org feed. What it basically comes down to is that Finnish scientists noticed that Russian children who grew up in rural areas usually had way less asthma cases than Finnish city children, and thus began to research why this was the case. They hypothesized that early (first 10000 days) exposure to micro-organisms might play a key rol…

"They hypothesized that early (first 10000 days) exposure to micro-organisms might play a key role in training the immune system not to over-react to (harmless) micro-organisms later on in life, and thus "train" the immune system better. Their hypothesis now seems to have been validated."

10000 days is 27 years, which seems an order of magnitude too large. 2.7 years(~ one thousand days) would be about right, perhaps?

Re: Finland's National Allergy Program Successfully Reduces Allergic Diseases

#96
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was young, I would play in my (outdoor) sandbox and then lick the dirt off my hands, because it tasted good. I still got asthma, though. My hypothesis for why children in rural areas get less asthma is because there's less air pollution, not because they eat dirt.

Licking dirt off your hands isn't the same as being exposed to pollen.

Is there more or less pollen in rural areas?

Re: Finland's National Allergy Program Successfully Reduces Allergic Diseases

#97
post #63
post #2

For me this link results in a 503 I've read the gist of this article in my local news org feed. What it basically comes down to is that Finnish scientists noticed that Russian children who grew up in rural areas usually had way less asthma cases than Finnish city children, and thus began to research why this was the case. They hypothesized that early (first 10000 days) exposure to micro-organisms might play a key rol…

Anecdotal backup: as a child I had a horrendous dust allergy that led to multiple hospital visits. To mitigate the problem, my mom became a clean freak, trying to keep our apartment dust-free. The allergy persisted until I grew up and moved out on my own without having a vacuum cleaner. Living in a messier environment led to the allergy basically disappearing.

Counter-anegdote. I grew up in the countryside, I am allergic to hay, pollen, dust mites, cat and horse saliva, and more.

I moved to a big city when I was ~20 and my symptoms got better, but I'm still allergic to all that - it's simply not putting me in hospital anymore.

Doctors told me most people grew out of the worst symptoms over time.

BTW I also somehow got allergic to kiwi fruits between primary school and my late 20s. I ate them rarely and at one point I found out they make me throat swell like a balloon. Didnt' happened before.

Re: Finland's National Allergy Program Successfully Reduces Allergic Diseases

#98
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Checks out in India as well where allergy levels are as low as hygiene levels. I think you have typo with 10000 days.

India doesn’t have low hygiene levels. Thats nothing more than a racist TikTok trend. Indians do have a different conception of public urban space which matches more closely with how the urban public in Europe would treat public space a 100 years ago, but that’s not surprising because proper urban cities in India are about as old as urban cities in Europe were a 100 years ago.

You are wrong. Either you don't live in India or live in a bubble in rich area and too privileged.

It's not racist when it's true. People are disgusting here and makes me want to vomit in times from what I see. There is no self awareness among Indians unless they live in rich well off area in India and move in their expensive cars.

Re: Finland's National Allergy Program Successfully Reduces Allergic Diseases

#99
post #41
post #2

For me this link results in a 503 I've read the gist of this article in my local news org feed. What it basically comes down to is that Finnish scientists noticed that Russian children who grew up in rural areas usually had way less asthma cases than Finnish city children, and thus began to research why this was the case. They hypothesized that early (first 10000 days) exposure to micro-organisms might play a key rol…

When I was young, I would play in my (outdoor) sandbox and then lick the dirt off my hands, because it tasted good. I still got asthma, though. My hypothesis for why children in rural areas get less asthma is because there's less air pollution, not because they eat dirt.

These sort of events tend to happen at the statistical level, not the individual level. You can't disprove them from one instance of a negative outcome. It's like saying you smoke but never got cancer, or you don't smoke but still got cancer.

Re: Finland's National Allergy Program Successfully Reduces Allergic Diseases

#100
post #9
post #2

For me this link results in a 503 I've read the gist of this article in my local news org feed. What it basically comes down to is that Finnish scientists noticed that Russian children who grew up in rural areas usually had way less asthma cases than Finnish city children, and thus began to research why this was the case. They hypothesized that early (first 10000 days) exposure to micro-organisms might play a key rol…

> first 10000 days A 10000 day old “child” is in their late twenties.

First 10000 days, second 10000 days, then you die.
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