Allergy amplifier implicated in asthma also intensifies food allergy

Allergy amplifier implicated in asthma also intensifies food allergy

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Food Weekly News -- LA JOLLA, CA--Almost eight percent of children under three years old and four percent of adults suffer food allergies, which trigger not only discomfiting symptoms like dermatitis and diarrhea but can cause deadly anaphylactic shock. Allergic responses emerge when food components, like egg, shellfish, or peanut proteins, stimulate white blood cells called mast cells to dump excessive quantities of histamine or cytokines into the blood, fomenting inflammation in skin, eyes, or gastrointestinal tract, among other tissues.

In 2012, LJI researcher Toshiaki Kawakami, M.D., Ph.D., reported that a small protein aptly named histamine-releasing factor (HRF) played a pro-inflammatory role in asthma. His group now extends that work in the November 13, 2017, online issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation by showing that HRF also serves as a “food allergy amplifier.” The paper reports a novel biochemical mechanism governing HRF activity, paves the way for blood tests to predict which patients will respond to allergy therapy, and strongly supports the idea that drugs designed to block HRF could prevent food allergy attacks.

Kawakami says that the “prevailing view” of the allergy cascade is: 1) allergens ramp up levels of antibodies …

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(2017-11-30), Allergy amplifier implicated in asthma also intensifies food allergy, Food Weekly News, 39, ISSN: 1944-1762, BUTTER® ID: 014766112