Treating food allergies might be a simple matter of teaching the immune system a new trick, researchers at Duke Health have found.
In a study using mice bred to have peanut allergies, the Duke researchers were able to reprogram the animals' immune systems using a nanoparticle delivery of molecules to the lymph nodes that switched off the life-threatening reactions to peanut exposures.
[...]
They focused on the Th2-type cytokine immune response, which is increasingly understood as a driver of the overactive immune responses in allergy attacks. In an appropriate immune response, Th2 works in tandem with Th1, but during allergic reactions, Th2 is overproduced and Th1 is diminished.
The solution appears simple enough: deliver more Th1-type cytokines ahead of an allergen exposure to restore balance. But it has proven difficult. A test of this type was attempted as an asthma therapy, but it required a massive dose to the lungs and was ineffective.
In their experiment with the peanut-allergy mice, St. John and colleagues instead delivered antigen- and cytokine-loaded nanoparticles into the skin. The nanoparticles traveled to the lymph nodes, where they dissolved and dispensed their payload at the source of the immune response.
Animals that received this therapy no longer went into an acute allergic response called anaphylaxis when they were subsequently exposed to peanuts. The new-found tolerance was long-lasting, so did not need to be repeated ahead of each exposure to the allergen.
"The Th1 and Th2 sides of immunity balance each other," St. John said. "We reasoned that since we know Th2 immunity is over-produced during allergic responses, why not try to skew the immune response back the other direction? By delivering cytokines to the lymph nodes where immune responses are established, we were able to re-educate the immune system that an allergic response is not an appropriate one."
The approach could theoretically be applied to other allergens, including environmental triggers such as dust and pollen. Additional experiments are underway to move the findings into human trials.
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Study: Vaccine Suppresses Peanut Allergies in Mice
Just three monthly doses of a nasal vaccine protected the mice from allergic reactions upon exposure to peanut, according to research from the Mary H. Weiser Food Allergy Center at the University of Michigan.
U-M researchers have spent nearly two decades developing a vaccine agent and have recently translated this work to the development of a vaccine to treat food allergies. In the new study, immunizing peanut allergic mice can redirect how immune cells responded to peanuts in allergic mice.
The new approach activates a different type of immune response that prevents allergic symptoms.
"We're changing the way the immune cells respond upon exposure to allergens," says lead author Jessica O'Konek, Ph.D., a research investigator at the food allergy center. "Importantly, we can do this after allergy is established, which provides for potential therapy of allergies in humans."
"By redirecting the immune responses, our vaccine not only suppresses the response but prevents the activation of cells that would initiate allergic reactions."
Nanoemulsion adjuvant–driven redirection of TH2 immunity inhibits allergic reactions in murine models of peanut allergy (DOI: 10.1016/j.jaci.2018.01.042) (DX)
Related: Peanut Allergy Cured in Majority of Children in Immunotherapy Trial
Animal Study Shows How To Retrain The Immune System To Ease Food Allergies
(Score: 2) by LVDOVICVS on Friday February 23 2018, @03:32PM
I'm allergic to wifi, Mondays, and mean people.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Friday February 23 2018, @04:02PM (6 children)
Allergies cured? This is wonderful news. But like all news of that sort, it's a long way from the lab to the store shelf or the doctor's office. I wonder if and when such treatments will be readily available.
I can imagine Big Pharma's allergy medication divisions already gearing up to squash this. The people who'd raise EpiPen prices from an already outrageous $200 to $600 surely would have no scruples about quietly killing this research if they can. On the other side should be peanut growers, dairy producers, and fishing interests, and restaurants who don't like the expense of having to deal with cross contamination for their customers who demand food be prepared with fresh gloves, oil, and pots and pans to avoid allergens, and of course everyone who is afflicted with a food allergy, so maybe Big Pharma is outmatched.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by canopic jug on Friday February 23 2018, @05:09PM
Big pharma controls the research money. Technically the government assigns the grants but since the money comes from industry, they have ultimate veto.
I have an anecdote about "sensitivities" to food. The article mentions allergies specifically and I'm not sure about how that relates to food "sensitivities". Someone I knew long ago got treatment for "sensitivities" and it turned their life around. Before treatment they were basically clobbered by anything and everything they ate. After a meal, they were quite listless and eventually fell asleep. Between meals they were extremely introverted, meek, low energy and avoided any kind of lively interaction and actively fled from the physical vicinity of anything resembling debate even between other people. After the treatment they were pretty much a normal outgoing person who could eat whatever they wanted and started interacting with other people and would even take an opposing viewpoint and defend it. Though they decided not to pick up the habit of eating desert.
Apparently it started out with drastic dietary restrictions combined with specific accupuncture methods. I never got to find out the details or even relevent terms though.
Now back to the matter of funding, I have a general comment: It's always awkward to bring up acupuncture because in a lot of countries there is a lot of quackery going on. Some states in the US, for example, require a medical degree to practice acupuncture. That's fine. What's not fine is that at the very same time some of those states don't require even an hour of formal training in acupuncture itself. That leads to it usually causing injury if it has any effect at all. Big pharma likes it like that. However, with experienced, trained specialist the results can be quite good for specific types of problems.
caveat, I am not a medical doctor and the following was a long time ago and I have not followed the scientific literature on the topc since: I got quite curious about acupuncture in general a few decades ago and, when I should have been spending time on my studies, ended up working through the medical library's journals for everything written on the topic in Western journals. It took about two or two and a half years. It looked to me like the initial rounds of Western research on acupuncture were done partially out of curiosity and with big pharma anticipating it to be debunked. Didn't happen and it turned out be useful in several areas. It was starting to show promise with endocrine problems, if I recall correctly, but that research seemed to get canceled early despite the bright outlook. Not that many years later, big pharma really started pushing hormone replacement therapy among other things.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by danmars on Friday February 23 2018, @05:23PM (2 children)
The manufacturers of the EpiPen will definitely not have the clout to bury such research, and pretty much all the basic antihistamine allergy medicines have generics at this point - you can get 2 weeks' supply of the Zyrtec generic for $1 at the dollar store. It would make sense for the companies to produce a new (surely expensive) cure for individual allergies, which need to be targeted at the individual allergen and don't provide any benefit for other allergies. Sounds like a win for everyone (except the makers of the EpiPen, who are nearly universally despised).
It likely doesn't even cure intolerances, though it would be amazing if it did. Scoff if you want to, but people with food intolerances would line up around the block. The people I've known who settled on a diagnosis of gluten intolerance did so begrudgingly, and would try a cure if it were available. People don't only eat kale or arugula because they're allergic to lettuce; food fashion is not predicated on having a screwed up digestive tract.
(Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Friday February 23 2018, @06:04PM (1 child)
Bullshit.
Its the In-Thing these days to claim gluten intolerance. You can be special just by asking. Then you can go home and eat all the gluten food you want. Nobody will know.
The down side is that faddishly sticking to a gluten free diet is a self fulfilling prophesy. If you never eat gluten you will, after a while, lose the gut microbes necessary to digest it, and thereby become gluten intolerant. Then you get to have a fecal transplant. Ah, the pleasures of fad following.!
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Friday February 23 2018, @08:23PM
My personal theory is that they do in fact have a reaction to something but it's probably not actually the gluten, though.
It's the correlation vs. causation effect. Gluten free stuff is generally rather healthy in other aspects as well.
If you feel sick after eating a Big Mac it's probably not the bun that did it!
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Friday February 23 2018, @05:53PM
You've not been paying attention. This is already available for humans.
In roughly chronological order:
http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1968474,00.html [time.com]
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-25917272 [bbc.com]
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24968-peanut-allergy-cured-in-children-using-immunotherapy/ [newscientist.com]
http://time.com/3719341/peanut-allergy-cure-treatment/ [time.com]
http://www.aappublications.org/news/2016/08/24/PeanutAllergy082416 [aappublications.org]
https://www.webmd.com/allergies/news/20160818/peanut-allergy-treatment-the-earlier-in-childhood-the-better#1 [webmd.com]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Saturday February 24 2018, @01:41PM
Poorly written but certainly not off topic from the subject of allergies. Even 30 second turns up fresh material, though maybe not on food allergies specifically.
Then with yesterday being the 23rd, here is a a timely reminder of a victim of quackery [ibtimes.com]. Acupuncture is completely inappropriate for treating cancer, even unqualified people know that. Unfortunately he sought out and found someone willing to kill him in exchange for taking his money. If Jobs had sought out qualified help, he might be still alive today. Neither poultices nor jow would work either.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Corelli's A on Friday February 23 2018, @04:22PM (1 child)
Newfound programmability of immune response leads to fixes for allergies: good. Next up: those with enough cash to spare can have fashionable allergies induced.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2018, @06:40PM
I'll be able to get that doctor approved allergy to work I've always wanted!