#stanford food allergy test

[joseywritesng]

Less risk, more useful results

Less risk, more useful results

June 16, 2022 — What would you do if you thought you had a serious health problem, but the best way to know for sure could kill you? That’s the reality for patients who want to confirm or rule out a food allergy, says Sindy Tang, PhDan associate professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford University in California. And it’s why Tang and her colleagues are developing a food allergy test that is…

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#allergy testing #anaphylaxis #can you outgrow food allergies? #common allergens #common food allergies #deadly allergic reactions #food allergy testing #new type of food allergy testing #signs of anaphylaxis #skin prick test for allergies #stanford #stanford food allergy test

[bhushans]

The Rise of Tech-Driven Therapies: Reshaping the Global Chronic Smell and Flavor Loss Treatment Market

The global Chronic Smell And Flavour Market in 2023 is US$ 3146 million, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.4%. Healthcare technology advancements are expected to drive the market to US$ 5850.2 million by 2033.

Over the course of the projection period, the market for chronic smell and flavor loss is anticipated to develop due to an increase in cases of post-COVID-19 flavor loss. In the long run, the market for treatments for chronic smell and flavor loss is anticipated to be impacted by increased awareness brought about by the current COVID-19 pandemic and the anticipated success of the only pipeline candidate.

Preview Next-Level Insights Sample : https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-16370

The creation of treatments tailored to individual diseases for persistent loss of flavor and odor will be beneficial for market expansion. For example, phosphodiesterase (PDE) inhibitors designed for intranasal delivery are included in CYR-064 formulations. All disorders causing loss of flavor and smell share a common main mechanism. It includes blocking the activation of stem cells, which is often brought about by adenylyl cyclase III acting through cAMP and cGMP.

North America dominates the chronic smell and flavour loss treatment market due to the presence of key market players’ presence, along with recent product launches and established healthcare infrastructure, which will accelerate the market’s growth in the region. The significant R&D investments in Europe abode well for market growth.

The manufacturers are involved in the production of chronic smell and flavor loss treatment in a larger capacity. Research and innovation are also conducted to launch innovative products for chronic smell and flavor loss treatment.

Key Takeaways from the Market Study

As of 2023, the chronic smell and flavor loss treatment market was valued at US$ 3146 Million

From 2023 to 2033, the chronic smell and flavor loss treatment industry is poised to grow at an 6.4% CAGR

By 2033, the chronic smell and flavor loss treatment market is slated to reach a valuation of US$ 5850.2 Million

China is poised to yield a CAGR of 6.0% with respect to chronic smell and flavor loss treatment in 2033

“Growing healthcare spending and increase in the prevalence of smell disorders and taste disorders are expected to radically transform the chronic smell and flavor loss treatment market in the coming years,” comments an analyst at FMI.

Competitive Landscape:

Some of the key players in the chronic smell and flavour loss treatment market like Cyrano Therapeutics, Johns Hopkins, Boys Town National Research Hospitals, MSD Manual, Alcon, Stanford Medicine, Immunomic Therapeutics, Siemens Healthcare Private Limited, Omega Diagnostics Group PLC, HYCOR Biomedical, Inc. and others.

The manufacturers are involved in the production of chronic smell and flavour loss treatment in a larger capacity. Research and innovation are also conducted to launch innovative products for chronic smell and flavour loss treatment.

Cyrano Therapeutics has developed a nasal spray to treat and restore the sense of smell and flavor in those who have experienced a chronic loss of those senses.The Company was founded by an experienced healthcare executive after personally experiencing a chronic loss of smell and flavor. The nasal spray has restored his smell and flavor function and he is now leading a mission to bring it to others.

Hycor Biomedical, a leading manufacturer of in vitro diagnostic products for allergy and autoimmune testing, announced today that it has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 510(k) clearance for its new allergy testing system, NOVEOS.

Key Segments Covered in Chronic Smell and Flavor Loss Treatment Industry Survey

Chronic Smell and Flavor Loss Treatment Market by Classification:

Smell Disorder

Taste disorder

Chronic Smell and Flavor Loss Treatment Market by Symptoms:

Anosmia or Hyposmia

Dysgeusia

Ageusia

Chronic Smell and Flavor Loss Treatment Market by Taste Type:

Self-Assessment Test

Psychophysical Assessment Test

Imaging Test

Other Tests

Chronic Smell and Flavor Loss Treatment Market by Region:

North America

Latin America

Western Europe

Eastern Europe

Asia Pacific

Middle East and Africa(MEA)

#Chronic Smell And Flavour Market

[nymandmathiasen75]

Collagen Peptides Fundamentals Explained

If you still want to give marine collagen a shot, see your medical doctor 1st to debate any possible dangers and Added benefits. Before you head to The shop or invest in on the net, go through the label extensively and look into the manufacturer. I am seventy five, healthy, healthy solid, continue to raring to go along with a great deal much more energetic than some who're young than me. Thinking of taking up rock climbing once more in the new calendar year. No colds, flu or viruses for so long as I'm able to don't forget. B.S. supplements are excellent. Effectively definitely worth the cash These foods include the amino acids proline and glycine. absolute collagen , zinc and copper may also be desired for the procedure. Foods that contain these amino acids, vitamins and minerals include things like: Katta. ConsumerLab, an investigative laboratory, examined various collagen supplements and found one which was contaminated having a weighty metal known as cadmium. That can result in health conditions. Claire is usually a Qualified indoor biking teacher and loves the psychological and physical Improve she will get from typical runs and yoga lessons. When she’s not keeping healthy herself, she’s cheering on her hometown’s sports activities groups in Pittsburgh, or cooking for her loved ones within the kitchen area. That’s Great news in case you’re wanting to reduce beef, but prevent marine collagen if you have a shellfish allergy. Help is at hand in the shape of collagen supplements. Whether it is in powder, pill or gel type, collagen supplements decrease the fee at which our own collagen breaks down and assist support our possess creation for plumper, juicier pores and skin. Peptides derived from collagen hydrolysates have not merely nutritional properties, but also have biological routines and regulatory roles that will relieve indications connected with chronic illnesses and advertise great overall health. Hair and nail energy. Benefits from small scientific studies present that collagen supplements may strengthen brittle nails or maximize nail development. But other experiments have demonstrated no reward. Since our hair is mainly made of keratin, and lots of the amino acids located in keratin are located in collagen, it’s plausible that consuming collagen could support hair development. Some 28 types of collagen types happen to be identified. They vary by how the molecules are assembled, the mobile components which can be included and the place the collagen is Employed in Your whole body. All collagen fibrils have at the very least a single triple helix composition. It was quite recognizable and other people would check with have u bumped ur head . Awaiting confirmation for removal. Only been using the collagen for two months plus the cyst has gone down which I’m delighted about . Will carry on to choose these supplements . Several collagen supplements also have other pores and skin-enriching nutrients, and jointly they help to enhance each other’s Positive aspects. Usually talk to a healthcare Experienced right before incorporating a supplement on your routine to ensure that the supplement is appropriate for your individual demands, and to see what dosage to choose. review] unveiled a number of systematic evaluate articles in the previous calendar year—likely reflecting the [supplement’s] level of popularity of use—for evaluating the efficacy of collagen nutraceuticals on skin growing older,” claims Zakia Rahman, MD, a dermatologist and scientist with Stanford Overall health Treatment in Redwood Town, California. “Whilst there continues to be additional being elucidated, the scientific tests So far seem to be comparatively promising.”

#ull #liquid collagen

[innatewellness]

Vibes Up Crystal Waterbottle Shimmer

The QUEX S/INDIGO/QUEX ED system is calibrated for every particular person shopper. Most allergy symptoms develop in childhood; they might stay dormant till reactivated by re-exposure in grownup life. S used herein, “Newegg.ca” means Newegg Canada Inc. until bioresonance test the context particularly refers back to the address. This probably helps us perceive our dynamic energetic our bodies from a scientific quantum perspective.

The laboratory-tested SafeSpace Smart Patch has been confirmed to remodel and neutralize radiation from wi-fi technologies, electronics and appliances. The Smart Patch converts the interfering radiation, immediately sending a coherent life-enhancing field through the gadget. The electrodes are related to a pc, which then report the information as the bioresonance service electromagnetic waves are transmitted to administer the therapies. Based on the recorded information, the depth of the signals on the electrodes can be increased or focused towards a specific part of the physique to deal with a big blockage of vitality ow.

List of attainable allergens that could be stressful to general health. Inversion of pathological waves and the intensification/regeneration of the physiological waves. Recipients of ThetaHealing really feel constructive vitality shifts and releases through the session, in addition to report continued enhancements in Mind, Body, Spirit and external life circumstances in the days and weeks following the session. Provides an extremely powerful, fast and straightforward method to reach a deep theta brainwave, as properly as present an easy way to apply mindfulness and meditation in simply moments anywhere.

You’ll see advert results based mostly on components like relevance, and the quantity sellers pay per click. In the pc, the knowledge is processed and analyzed by the Orion software program utilizing a classy non-linear system evaluation . Enzymesare what control how the body works, in digesting food, metabolism of chemical compounds, forming of hormones, and rather more. The responses being measured are minute modifications within the electrical resistance of the pores and skin. A report is generated by Qest4 of any responses which are outside specified limits. Extremely low electro-magnetic alerts are output by the Qest4 hardware utilizing a simple and safe low-voltage circuit fashioned by holding the two brass cylinders, and the response of the physique to those signals is recorded.

Researchers within the first part of the last century, specifically Dr. Abrams of Stanford University, began to experiment with the radial power given off by living persons. The inflammation that produces the pain we really feel isn't the illness , but the outcomes of the disease. Our bioresonance scan is capable of measuring the effectiveness of remedies corresponding to food dietary supplements, homeopathic remedies, and so on. By means of this perform, it could find essentially the most efficient remedy for the shopper. The scanner can establish which therapeutic treatments work greatest and which burdens are present. The vitality of the substance is actually imprinted into water in a very particular way.

This resulted, for instance, in a type of allergy therapy which was practiced as “allergy obliteration”. This rotation of the knowledge on an allergy or a body’s own oscillation is recognized as inversion (Herrmanna and Galleb 2011; Chen et al. 2010). Researchers have been in a position to study the distinct wave patterns of normally-functioning body methods and organs in addition to the oscillations of allergens, viruses, micro organism bioresonance therapy service, and toxins. All SafeSpace merchandise are designed to supply a particular kind of protection. Because they are based on the same principles of refined energy and harmonic resonance, the merchandise by no means battle or cancel each other out, and they can be used collectively for added protection.

Genetic checks will determine whether or not or not you have a specific types of the HLA . About 25% of the inhabitants has specific HLA genes known to set off CIRS. A wholesome cell radiates coherent light, whereas a diseased cell radiates chaotic gentle. Just as an EMF can influence the bodily human body bioresonance allergy test, sure subtle energies can affect sure EMFs. Specifically, a delicate vitality that is coherent and “senior” to a selected EMF can affect it. The well being of the entire body can be determined by analyzing the length of time between every heartbeat.

#Bioresonance test

[thelastspeecher]

Mission: White Picket Fence - PTA

Last night, I was in a Spy AU mood (specifically, Mission: White Picket Fence), so I asked for suggestions, and both @mythomagically-delicious and @nour386 suggested Stan and Angie going to a PTA meeting.  So here it is.  Stan and Angie going to a PTA meeting and hating every second of it.  Enjoy.

              Stan unbuckled the car seat and picked Fiddleford up out of it.

              “I still think this is ridiculous,” Fiddleford hissed at Stan. “I don’t need to be in a car seat.” Stan carefully set Fiddleford on the ground.

              “Angie and I agree,” Stan whispered.  “But that the decision was from the higher-ups, so we have to follow it.” Fiddleford scowled.  “Are you just grumpy because you had to change out of your comfortable clothes for this?”

              “That’s a factor, fer sure,” Fiddleford muttered.  He tugged at his polo shirt.  “I hate these formal clothes.  They’re itchy.”

              “We all have to wear stuff we don’t wanna,” Stan said.  He gestured at himself.  “Do you think I enjoy wearing sweater vests and button-downs?” Fiddleford frowned.

              “Do those belong to Stanford?”

              “…Maybe.”

              “I don’t see why I have to dress up fer this PTA meetin’,” Fiddleford continued. “I ain’t a parent or a teacher. It ain’t school hours.  Do the folks ‘round here just assume that children are dressed like they’re headin’ to the country club 24/7?”

              “…Yes,” Stan said after a moment.  Fiddleford huffed.  “Look, we’ve gotta keep up appearances.  That means dressing nice in public.  Like I said, you aren’t the only one who hates it.”

              “Enough gripin’, gents,” Angie said, getting out of the passenger seat. She stumbled slightly.  Stan reached out to grab her.

              “Babe?”

              “I’m fine.  Just got a bit dizzy fer a second.”  Angie shook her head.  “All right. That’s better.”  She grabbed her large purse out of the minivan. “Remember, once we step inside, any business relatin’ to the mission has to be said in Spanish.”

              “Are we sure that we won’t be understood?” Fiddleford asked.  

              “Well, we’ll be whisperin’ in addition to speakin’ in a dif’rent language,” Angie said.  “But yes.”

              “I’ve met some of these parents,” Stan muttered.  “There’s no way any of them know Spanish.  Pretty sure they’re of the ‘Speak English or get out’ mindset.” Fiddleford frowned at Stan.

              “Stanley, will ya be able to keep yer cover in there?”

              “I get paid to do this shit, Fiddlesticks,” Stan said.  “Yeah, I will.”  Angie handed him a tray of brownies.  “All right.  Let’s go…do whatever you do at a PTA meeting.”

----- 

              The second they stepped into the school, Angie grabbed Fiddleford’s hand. Fiddleford immediately attempted to wriggle free.  Angie tightened her grip and frowned at Fiddleford.

              “Ryan, I know you want your dad to hold your hand, but he’s got to carry the treats we brought,” she said, dropping her accent and adjusting her voice to a lower pitch.

              “We’re inside, I don’t need to hold your hand,” Fiddleford whined, abandoning his accent as well.  Angie’s frown deepened.  “…Mom.”

              “Well, I don’t want you wandering off, okay?  This is a big school.”

              “But-”

              “Listen to your mom, kiddo,” Stan said.  Like Angie and Fiddleford, he had lost his accent, and like Angie, adjusted his voice.  Instead of the usual gravelly tone, it was warm and jovial.  Fiddleford sighed quietly.

              “Okay,” he said.  Angie’s death grip loosened slightly.  Fiddleford looked around the hallway.  St. Luke’s was an inviting school during the day, but at night, something was eerie. Maybe it was the harsh fluorescent lights juxtaposed against the dark sky, or the complete silence so strong a pin drop would be audible.  Either way, the hairs on the back of Fiddleford’s neck stood up.  Finally, they rounded a corner and could make out faint conversation.

              “Sounds like we’re getting close,” Angie said.  Stan and Fiddleford nodded.  The three of them came to a stop outside a kindergarten classroom. Fiddleford noted, to his distaste, that it was the same classroom he had mistakenly been assigned to for two weeks. Angie beamed broadly at the woman standing at the door.  “Hello! I’m Laura Young.  This is my husband, Conner, and our youngest son, Ryan.” The woman smiled back.

              “Nice to meet you.  I’m Helen.” Stan muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like “Of course you are”.

              “It’s lovely to meet you, too!” Angie chirped.  “We’re new, so that’s why we haven’t been to one of these meetings before.”

              “And that’s also why you brought your son, I assume?” Helen said.  Angie raised an eyebrow.

              “Pardon?”

              “We don’t allow children at our PTA meetings.”

              “Oh, well, we didn’t plan on bringing Ryan.  But both of us wanted to attend the meeting.”

              “You don’t have a nanny?” Helen asked.  A disgusted expression flashed across Angie’s face before she regained her composure.

              “Ryan is rather sensitive,” Angie whispered.  “He doesn’t do well without either myself or my husband around.”

              “I imagine he makes it through the school day somehow,” Helen said with a smile.  Angie straightened her back.

              “I knew you would understand,” she said brightly.  Helen blinked.  “Thank you, so much.”  Angie breezed past Helen and into the classroom, dragging Fiddleford with her.  Fiddleford looked back at Helen.  She seemed completely blindsided.

              “Hello, Youngs,” a chipper voice said.  Lisa, the neighbor Stan couldn’t stand, walked over.  She bent over to smile at Fiddleford.  “Hello, Ryan.”  Fiddleford hid behind Angie’s leg.  “Oh, right, he’s shy, isn’t he?” Lisa said, straightening up.  “He’s also not allowed to be here.”

              “He won’t be a problem,” Angie said smoothly.  She patted her bag.  “I brought plenty of things to entertain him with while the grownup business happens. We simply couldn’t leave him at home.” Angie lowered her voice.  “He’s still adjusting to the move, after all.”

              “Of course.”  Lisa’s gaze landed on the tray of brownies Stan was carrying.  “You brought pastries?”

              “Brownies,” Stan corrected.

              “Ah, well, brownies are a type of pastry,” Lisa said.  Fiddleford could hear Stan’s teeth grinding.

              “They’re homemade,” Angie said.  She smiled at Stan.  “Conner worked in a bakery to pay for graduate school.  He’s still quite the baker.”  Stan smiled back at Angie.

              “You flatter me too much, honey.”

              “I disagree,” Angie cooed.  “Now, go put those brownies somewhere while Ryan and I find a spot to sit.”  Stan nodded.  He walked over to a trestle table covered in various foodstuffs. Angie smiled at Fiddleford.  “Come on, Ryan.”  Fiddleford gladly let Angie lead him to a beanbag chair in the back of the room.  Angie let go of his hand, allowing Fiddleford to take a seat.  “Comfy?”  Fiddleford shifted slightly on the beanbag.  He nodded.  “Do you want your tablet?”  Fiddleford nodded again.  Angie took a tablet computer out of her purse and handed it to him.  “Whatcha going to play?”

              “Minecraft,” Fiddleford mumbled.  Angie sat on a short, brightly colored chair.  She smiled.

              “Sounds great.”  She dug around in her purse.  Fiddleford started up the tablet.  “Oh, here. You’ll need this.”  Angie placed a small piece of paper in Fiddleford’s lap. Fiddleford glanced down.  It was the Wi-Fi password, followed by a series of numbers.

              “Thanks, Mom.”

              “Of course, sweetie.”  Angie stroked Fiddleford’s hair.  Stan joined them.  “Anything on that food table look good?”

              “Looked like it was all weird, allergy-free, sugar-free, healthy stuff. So, no.”  Stan squatted next to Fiddleford.  He switched to speaking in Spanish.  “Remember, don’t bother trying to sift through the data yet.  Just grab it.  We’ll go over it at the house.”  Fiddleford nodded slightly.

              “Was that Spanish?” a voice asked.  Stan and Angie looked over at the speaker.  It was a woman with short blonde hair and an air of superiority. Like most of the people in the room.

              “Uh, yes, it was,” Stan said.  The woman’s eyes widened.

              “Wow,” she said.  “Are you teaching him Spanish so that he can communicate better with the help?  That’s so considerate.”  Stan’s wary expression settled into a carefully blank one.

              “No, we’re not,” he said shortly.  The woman frowned.

              “Then why?”

              “We don’t need to teach him Spanish.”

              “But-”

              “Ryan here was born in Costa Rica,” Angie interrupted.  “He’s fluent in Spanish already.  Sometimes we switch between languages, just so that he keeps up his fluency.”

              “He was born in Costa Rica?”  Stan and Angie nodded.  “Does he know that he’s adopted?”  The last word was spoken in a stage whisper.  Angie’s forced cheer evaporated.  She tensed visibly.

              “Penny, Dan wants to know if- oh!”  Lisa appeared behind the woman currently testing Stan and Angie’s acting skills.  “These are the neighbors I told you about.”

              “The world travelers?” the woman – Penny – asked.

              “Yes.  The Youngs.” Lisa beamed at Stan and Angie. “And their youngest son, Ryan.”

              “That explains why he was born in a different country,” Penny said.  “I mean, if you traveled the world-”

              “We didn’t,” Stan interrupted.  “What Laura and I did, it was just jumping around Central America for a while so that we could keep up our doctoral research.  We’ve never left the Western Hemisphere.”  Stan looked at Angie.  “I don’t consider that world traveling.  Do you, dear?”

              “Oh, no,” Angie said.  “We’re well-traveled, but only in regards to Central America.  When considering the whole world, we’ve barely left the neighborhood!”  She let out a light laugh.  Penny and Lisa laughed as well.

              “The meeting will start soon, so we’ll leave you alone,” Lisa said.  Angie and Stan nodded silently.  Lisa and Penny walked away.

              “How the hell do their faces not break?” Stan whispered in Spanish.  Angie frowned at him.  “The way they smile all the time.”  Angie rolled her eyes good-naturedly.

              “I agree,” she replied in the same language.  “Though it’s more like baring their teeth than smiling, in my opinion.”  She rubbed her forehead.  “Lord, I’m jealous of Ford.  He didn’t have to come to this.”

              “Yeah, but he’s stuck at that kid Clark’s house, being treated like a nine-year-old.”               “I suppose you’ve got a point.”  Angie sighed and leaned back in her chair.  “How’s it going, Ryan?”

              “Now that those ladies left, I can actually get started,” Fiddleford mumbled, speaking Spanish like Stan and Angie.  He tapped on his tablet furiously.  “They have good security here.  It’ll take me longer than I thought to hack in.”

              “Great,” Stan groaned.  He got up. “I’m gonna go get some brownies. Either of you want one?”

              “If you made them?  No,” Fiddleford said shortly.

              “I made them,” Angie said.  “Your ‘father’ completely destroyed his first three attempts, so I stepped in.”

              “I’ll figure out how to bake eventually,” Stan said with a shrug.

              “You’ll do it soon,” Angie said firmly.  “It’s part of your backstory.”

              “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Stan said.  “So, Ryan, did you change your mind about a brownie, then?”

              “Eh, sure, I’ll have one,” Fiddleford said, still busily tapping.

              “Laura?” Stan asked.  Angie shook her head.

��             “No, thanks.  I’m not feeling that well.”  Fiddleford and Stan looked at her.  “Oh, relax. It’s nothing.  Just a bit of an upset stomach.”

              “Do you feel nauseous?” Stan asked.  Angie nodded.

              “Yeah.”  She looked at Stan in an accusing manner.  “Maybe it’s food poisoning from those messed-up brownies you made.”  Stan put a hand over his chest in mock distress.

              “You wound me, wife,” he gasped.  Angie chuckled.  “You don’t get a brownie.”

              “I didn’t ask for one.”  Angie grimaced.  She bent over and gagged.

              “You all right?” Fiddleford asked.  Angie nodded.

              “Yes.  That was just a bad hit of nausea is all.”

              “Well, keep that puke inside you until Ryan’s done,” Stan said.  He eyed the gathered parents and teachers.  “You throwing up would be a great way for us to leave early without being questioned too much by these fucking asses.”  Angie nodded.

              “Anything to get out of here sooner.”

#honestly writing this was INCREDIBLY fun #so much fun to write the awful suburban upper middle class white moms #with the generic white lady names #who are being excellent testers of Stan and Angie's ability to maintain their covers #Spy AU #Fiddleford McGucket #Stanley Pines #Angie McGucket #my writing #my stuff #ficlet #speecher speaks

[techcrunchappcom]

New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/the-latest-china-toughens-travel-rules-for-xinjiang-capital-national-news/

The Latest: China toughens travel rules for Xinjiang capital | National News

A government employee disinfects a public school as a measure against the spread of the new coronavirus, in the Taguatinga neighborhood of Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday, July 28, 2020. The local government has began preparing for the safe reopening of schools in mid-August, as restrictions related to the COVID-19 lockdown are eased.

A sign hangs outside Bruno’s Tavern in New Orleans on Tuesday, July 14, 2020. Bruno’s is one of many bars around the city that shut down under new restrictions the state announced over the weekend to fight the spread of coronavirus. Bars in New Orleans had been allowed to open, with limited capacity, a month earlier when the number of hospitalizations from the virus in Louisiana was in decline.

Aziah Sajerstein, who works as a volunteer at the Cat Cafe South Beach, wears a protective face mask and gloves as she sanitizes touch points during the coronavirus pandemic, Wednesday, July 29, 2020, in Miami Beach, Fla. The cafe offers a place for cat lovers to spend time with cats, which are also available for adoption. The business, independently owned by Celyta Jackson, will be closing at the end of the week as the tourism sector in Miami-Dade County is suffering due to the pandemic.

GermBlast employee Jade Davis fumigates disinfectant onto student lockers at Bowie Middle School in Odessa, Texas on Tuesday, July 28, 2020. The cleaning crew that Davis is part of is one of many measures to be implemented to help ensure the safety of students and school staff from COVID-19 in the case of an in-person return to school in Odessa.

Volunteer Rachel Friedland prepares to load food in a car at a kosher food drive-thru distribution site, Wednesday, July 29, 2020, at the Greater Miami Jewish Federation building in Miami.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards holds up his own mask, taken off while he was speaking, to remind Louisiana residents that a highly effective thing within their power to do to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is to simply wear a mask, Tuesday, July 28, 2020, at a press conference update on the state’s COVID-19 situation at the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness in Baton Rouge, La.

Passengers arrive at Heathrow Airport, in London, Sunday July 26, 2020. The British government has announced 14-day quarantine restrictions from Sunday, for people arriving into England from certain countries including Spain, after Covid-19 second wave fears saw the European country struck off the UK’s safe list.

Silva Cossa, the caretaker, looks up as he ties ribbons onto the fence to represents a South African who has died from Covid-19, at St James Presbyterian church in Bedford Gardens, Johannesburg, South Africa, Wednesday, July 29, 2020.

Volunteer Malka Rodrig unpacks meals at a kosher food drive-thru distribution site, Wednesday, July 29, 2020, at the Greater Miami Jewish Federation building in Miami.

A funeral home worker wearing a full protective gear to protect himself from the spread of the new coronavirus waits to enter La Verbena cemetery in Guatemala City, Tuesday, July 28, 2020.

FILE – In this Tuesday, July 28, 2020 file photo, Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks to local people at the Canal Side Heritage Centre in Beeston near Nottingham, England. Johnson is looking for a spokesperson with broadcasting experience— and a thick skin — to become the government’s face at televised media briefings. The government placed a job ad Wednesday, July 29 on the governing Conservative Party’s website seeking applicants with news judgment, the ability to remain calm under pressure and “excellent risk management and crisis communications skills.”

A man sunbathes at a park in Hong Kong Thursday, July 30, 2020. As of Wednesday, Hong Kong reported over 3,000 coronavirus infections, with dozens of deaths. Businesses such as bars, karaoke bars and amusement parks remain temporarily closed.

A new work of art entitled ‘The End’ by artist Heather Phillipson newly unveiled on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square in London, Thursday, July 30, 2020. Described as representing “exuberance and unease” and a “monument to hubris and impending collapse”, The End, by British artist Heather Phillipson, will stay in place until spring 2022.

People riding the subway wear face masks to protect against the spread of the coronavirus in Taipei, Taiwan, Thursday, July 30, 2020.

A medical staff takes a sample for a voluntary coronavirus disease test (COVID-19) at the new corona test station at the ‘Hochfelln’ service station on the A8 motorway between Salzburg and Munich near Bergen, Germany, Thursday, July 30, 2020.

Dr. Deborah Birx, U.S. Global Aids Coordinator & U. S. Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy, left, speaks with Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, right, and a roundtable of community and state health officials inside the Patrick Henry Building in Richmond, Va. Tuesday, July 28, 2020.

FILE – In this June 26, 2020, file photo Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci, center, speaks as Vice President Mike Pence, right, and Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, left, listen during a news conference with members of the Coronavirus task force at the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington. Fauci has warned that the United States could soon see 100,000 infections per day. “We haven’t even begun to see the end of it yet,” Fauci said during a talk hosted by Stanford University’s School of Medicine.

Employees disinfect a closed mall in Mumbai, Thursday, July 30, 2020. Malls and market complexes will reopen on Aug. 5. However theaters, food courts and gyms will remain closed.

Employees disinfect a closed mall in Mumbai, Thursday, July 30, 2020. Malls and market complexes will reopen on Aug. 5. However theaters, food courts and gyms will remain closed.

Dr. Yomaris Pena, of SOMOS Community Care in New York, disinfects chairs at the new COVID-19 testing site at Pinellas Community Church on Wednesday, July 29, 2020, in St. Petersburg, Fla. A new free testing site opened Wednesday in south St. Petersburg with the help of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo sent 7,500 tests to seed the site at the church. Tests are by appointment only, but don’t require symptoms or exposure. And since appointments are required, the testing site doesn’t require those seeking a test to wait in line or come in a vehicle.

Wearing masks to curb the spread of the new coronavirus, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro and his wife Michelle Bolsonaro, arrive to attend the launching of a rights guarantee program for rural women, at the Planalto Presidential Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Wednesday, July 29, 2020.

People wearing face masks line up to have their coronavirus rapid tests as they hope to use the government’s transportation assistance program to return to their outlying provinces on Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at a stadium in Manila, Philippines. Hundreds of people who were stuck in the capital due to travel restrictions during the lockdown stayed at a crowded stadium as they wait for free rides back to their provinces.

An Indian worker crosses a street holding a shovel during monsoon rains in Prayagraj, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Wednesday, July 29, 2020.

A man carries milk vessels and rides a bike in the monsoon rains in Prayagraj, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Wednesday, July 29, 2020.

Women wearing face masks wait to join a parade in Bali, Indonesia, on Thursday, July 30, 2020. Indonesia’s resort island of Bali will reopen for domestic tourists on Friday after months of virus lockdown.

A woman wearing a face mask carries an offering to local deities on her head during a parade in Bali, Indonesia on Thursday, July 30, 2020. Indonesia’s resort island of Bali will reopen for domestic tourists on Friday after months of virus lockdown.

Residents sit spaced apart to practice social distancing as a precaution against the new coronavirus outbreak as they access free wifi on their mobile phones at Jatirahayu village office in Bekasi on the outskirts of Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, July 29, 2020.

Indonesian students wear face masks to help curb the spread of the new coronavirus as they access free wifi on their mobile phones at Jatirahayu village office in Bekasi on the outskirts of Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, July 29, 2020.

In this July 29, 2020 photo made available by the Monroe County Sherif’ss Office, Fla., shows Yohana Anahi Gonzalez. Gonzalez and her partner Jose Antonio Freire Interian, both COVID positive, were arrested, Thursday, July 29, 2020, in the Florida Keys after authorities said they violated quarantine rules. The rare arrests underscore the fervent national debate over how to enforce rules on masks and self-quarantines.

FILE – In this Dec. 13, 2019, file photo, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine speaks about his plans for the coming year during an interview at the Governor’s Residence in Columbus, Ohio. Ohio’s Republican governor was hailed as prophetic for his decisive steps to shut down schools and stop the state’s presidential primary election early during the coronavirus outbreak. Since then, he’s found navigating a path out of the state’s pandemic shutdown to be a bumpy one.

District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser speaks during an announcement that District of Columbia public schools will be all virtual through Nov. 6, during a news conference, Thursday, July 30, 2020, in Washington.

Rob Glassman, general manager of the Over the Top rental linens company, protests in support of the live events industry receiving federal aid outside of the office of Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., during the coronavirus pandemic, Thursday, July 30, 2020, in Miami. Many small businesses in the events industry have been shut down since March due to the pandemic.

In this July 29, 2020 photo made available by the Monroe County Sherif’ss Office, Fla., shows Jose Antonio Freire Interian. Interian and his partner Yohana Anahi Gonzalez, both COVID positive, were arrested, Thursday, July 29, 2020, in the Florida Keys after authorities said they violated quarantine rules. The rare arrests underscore the fervent national debate over how to enforce rules on masks and self-quarantines.

A couple of tourists, one wearing a mask, walk towards the fountains in Trafalgar Square in Trafalgar Square in London, Thursday, July 30, 2020.

A sign is posted on a pole along the main street to encourage visitors and residents to wear face coverings while walking around Monday, July 27, 2020, in the mountain tourist town of Georgetown, Colo.

President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at the White House, Thursday, July 30, 2020, in Washington.

A woman in a face mask speaks on the phone on a sidewalk during the coronavirus pandemic in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, Friday, July 24, 2020.

FILE – In this March 31, 2020, file photo, a sign applauding health care workers is displayed outside the University of Oklahoma Medical Center in Oklahoma City. The head of coronavirus response at the university medical center says an increase in the number of younger Oklahomans dying as a result of the illness caused by the virus has become a worry. Dr. Dale Bratzler said Friday, July 24, 2020, that even though most deaths remain in the 65 and older age group, the increase in deaths among those 36-49 years old shows it can kill younger people as well.

Des Moines Area Quilters Guild member Deanna Wilson, of West Des Moines, Iowa, chooses a face mask kit that once completed will be distributed to Des Moines Public Schools students, Thursday, July 30, 2020, in Des Moines, Iowa.

Visitors to Karmel Plaza wear face masks as they gather Wednesday, July 22, 2020 in Minneapolis. Gov. Tim Walz issued a statewide mandate Wednesday requiring Minnesotans to wear masks in indoor public spaces.

Jean White and her great-grandson Mason Shumpert, 7, of Tupelo, wear their masks as they shop the vegetable aisle at Todd’s in Tupelo on Friday, July 24, 2020 as the coronavirus earns attention in Northeast Mississippi.

A street barber wearing a face mask to protect against the coronavirus attends to his customer near a banner on the pandemic which reads “Discover early” in Beijing, Thursday, July 30, 2020. China is stepping up testing for COVID-19 in an attempt to get a handle on new outbreaks that have defied the country’s considerable success in containing the coronavirus that was first detected in the central city of Wuhan late last year.

Residents at a Uniting Gen Regen AOD residential facility try on new masks in Melbourne, Thursday, July 30, 2020. Australia’s coronavirus hot spot, Victoria state, will make wearing masks compulsory after reporting a record more than 700 new cases on Thursday, mostly among the vulnerable residents of aged care homes.

A fan wearing a face masks to help protect against the spread of the new coronavirus cheers during the KBO league game between Doosan Bears and LG Twins in Seoul, South Korea, Sunday, July 27, 2020. Masked fans hopped, sang and shouted cheering slogans in baseball stadiums in South Korea on Sunday as authorities began bringing back spectators in professional sports games amid the coronavirus pandemic.

BEIJING — China is tightening travel restrictions in the capital of the Xinjiang region amid a COVID-19 outbreak in the northwestern city.

People arriving in Urumqi from regions considered to have high infection risk must undergo a two-week quarantine. Others arriving from less risky areas most show proof of good health. Locals “in principle” must stay in the city or show proof of health to be allowed to leave.

Hong Kong, meanwhile, continues to see a third wave of infections, with almost 150 new cases reported Friday to bring its total to 3,151 cases and 25 deaths.

Despite that, authorities issued an order Thursday allowing restaurants to operate under limited hours and with limited capacity. But businesses such as bars, karaoke bars and amusement parks still must remain closed.

HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:

— Florida tallies another record high daily deaths

— India says herd immunity won’t work, need vaccine

— Health officials Birx, Fauci recommend face shields, masks

— Deaths are mounting rapidly in the U.S., and cases are rising in close to 30 states in all. The outbreak’s center of gravity seems to be shift from the Sun Belt toward the Midwest.

#National

[liliannorman]

New success in treating allergies to peanuts and other foods

Ten years ago at a kindergarten party, Isaac Judy took a bite of a peanut-butter cookie. It tasted weird to him, so he spit it out. Hives soon appeared on his face. His lips also began to swell. When his dad came to pick him up, Isaac was coughing and wheezing. Riding in the car to the other side of St. Louis, Mo., where they lived, Isaac fell asleep — or so it seemed.

When Isaac’s mother saw what was happening, she suspected something more serious. “He hadn’t fallen asleep. He lost consciousness,” Jaelithe Judy explains. After a trip to the emergency room, her five-year-old recovered. But doctors confirmed her hunch: Isaac has a peanut allergy.

Just a few generations ago, hardly anyone talked about food allergies. But over the past two decades, childhood food allergies in the United States have more than doubled. A little more than a year ago, a study in Pediatrics reported that 7.6 percent of U.S. kids under age 18 have food allergies. That’s almost 8 million youth — about two students per classroom. And it’s much more than a childhood issue. Surprisingly, a study last year in JAMA Network Open found that nearly 11 percent of adults have food allergies, too. More than one in every four of them said they had not been allergic to foods as children.

There has been a sharp increase in the share of U.S. children with food allergies in the past two decades.Data from R.S. Gupta et al/2018 and the CDC

These days nearly everyone has “come across a family member or person who has been touched by food allergies, or has one themselves,” says Tamara Hubbard. She works in the suburbs of Chicago, Ill., as a licensed counselor. Hubbard and a growing number of counselors are helping families through the stress of managing food allergies.

For years, doctors have told families there’s nothing they can do but avoid the trigger food — or inject a fast-acting medication called epinephrine (Ep-ih-NEF-rinn) to stop a severe reaction. But researchers are learning more about why some people overreact to certain foods. And new treatments are emerging. Late last month, the first treatment for peanut allergy earned approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Another could do so within a year or so. Scientists also are continuing to develop and test other ways to treat food allergies. 

Immunity run amok

Allergic reactions occur when the immune system overreacts. Normally immune cells help fight bacteria, viruses and other pathogens. Yet some people’s immune systems also react to harmless stuff like pollen or mold — or peanuts, milk or other foods. 

Such run-ins trigger a release of histamine (HIS-tuh-meen) and other chemicals. These molecules “get the ball rolling for an allergic reaction,” explains Tina Sindher. She works as an allergist at Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, Calif.

During an allergic reaction, someone may get itchy and develop hives. If the reaction worsens, the person might cough, wheeze and suffer a whole-body reaction known as anaphylaxis (An-uh-fuh-LAX-iss). That’s what happened to Isaac — and to Shea Tritt’s son, Gaines, in Abingdon, Va.

Gaines’ peanut allergy surfaced in the fall of 2012. At the time, he was a baby and his diagnosis put the whole family on edge. For the next few years “he never trick-or-treated. He never went to a birthday party. I was scared to put him in preschool,” says Tritt. “My husband and I had a lot of stress because he could tell I wasn’t letting Gaines do normal things. So we would argue.”

Even Gaines’ older sister got nervous. If she went to a party, she worried about bringing back traces of peanut-containing treats that might sicken her brother, Tritt recalls. Living in such constant vigilance can be emotionally draining for families with food allergies.

Anxious and desperate, Tritt wondered if her son would outgrow his allergies, and how she could ever find out. “I became obsessed with information — anything I could do to get us out of this situation,” she says.

When a kiss can make you sick

Silly greeting cards often depict a kiss on the cheek of a cartoon figure as a big red imprint of lips. For people with a serious food allergy, real kisses sometimes leave the same mark. But it’s not funny. That red wheal signals an allergic hypersensitivity to food residues on the smoocher’s mouth.

One renowned study at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine surveyed 379 people with especially severe allergies to peanuts, tree nuts or seeds. Twenty had experienced hives or other symptoms after a kiss. In all but one case, the kisser had eaten nuts up to 6 hours earlier; at least four had first brushed their teeth.

Most reactions proved mild. But five people developed wheezing or flushing with light-headedness — potentially dangerous signs. And one three-year old was rushed to the hospital to treat respiratory distress after his mother pecked him on the cheek. — Janet Raloff

One day, Tritt saw a TV interview with David Stukus. He’s an allergist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Stukus saw that many patients with food allergy are fearful. They often are confused because they’re not getting the facts they need. So Stukus opened a Twitter account to spread evidence-based information. Tritt took note.

Looking at her son’s blood-test results, year after year, Tritt suspected his immune response to peanuts was lessening. However, blood tests cannot give a clear “yes” or “no.” These tests detect specialized immune proteins. They are called IgE antibodies. These molecules trigger allergic reactions. But IgE levels only indicate that someone is sensitive to a certain food. They cannot predict whether that person will react if they eat it. Proving Gaines had outgrown his peanut allergy would require an oral food challenge. And that would require that the patient eat increasing amounts of the food while a doctor watches for allergic reactions. 

Trouble is, Tritt could not find a local allergist to perform the food challenge. This procedure needs extra time and staff. It also runs a risk of triggering anaphylaxis. So, many clinics won’t offer it unless a patient’s blood results are low — low enough to suggest they would tolerate the food. Gaines’ numbers had steadily dropped over the years but were still a tad too high.

Peanuts: Becoming bite-proof

For about half of people with peanut allergies, “a bite or two of the wrong food typically contains enough peanut protein to trigger a reaction,” notes Brian Vickery. He is a pediatric allergist at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga. For these people, he says, 100 milligrams (0.004 ounce) of peanut protein, or about one-third of a peanut kernel, can set off such a reaction.

Vickery used to work at Aimmune Therapeutics. This California company is developing a treatment for peanut allergy. It is called oral immunotherapy, or OIT for short. The procedure involves each day eating a wee bit of peanut protein — pre-measured into capsules. The capsule dose goes up every few weeks over a period of months. If the treatment works, it can raise the immune system’s threshold for the food. That means it would take more of the food to trigger an allergic reaction. In other words, it’s possible for the person to become “bite-proof.”

Aimmune tested its capsules — or a dummy version called a placebo — in 551 children and teens with peanut allergies. The starting dose was half a milligram (0.00002 ounce) of peanut protein. (One peanut contains 600 times that much.) Over a six-month period, the daily dose went up to 300 milligrams (0.01 ounce), or about one peanut’s worth. And each day for six more months, participants had to continue eating that much.

During the study, many participants experienced allergic reactions to the peanut pills. Forty-five quit because of these unpleasant symptoms. But among those who finished the study, two-thirds of the treated group became bite-proof. After about a year, they could safely eat roughly two peanuts. “They’re still careful about avoiding peanuts,” says Vickery. “But it provides that additional margin of safety.”

Those results appeared in the November 2018 New England Journal of Medicine. 

Based on these and other findings, the FDA approved those peanut capsules on January 31.

Similar work underway

Over the past decade and prior to the FDA approval, a small number of allergists had already started offering OIT using store-bought foods. Tritt found one such clinic several hours away. However, that clinic was not willing to give her son a peanut challenge to confirm whether he still was allergic.

Tritt didn’t want to sign her son up for a long, costly treatment if he might in fact be outgrowing his allergy. But they couldn’t know for sure without the gold-standard test, that oral food challenge.

Blood tests can indicate if someone has specialized proteins that sensitize their immune system to a given food. However, these tests cannot predict if someone will actually develop an allergic reaction to that food.jarun011/iStock/Getty Images Plus

She discussed her dilemma with Stukus on Twitter. Reviewing Gaines’ blood-test results, Stukus agreed to conduct the food challenge. Just before Gaines started kindergarten, his family travelled from Virginia to the doctor’s clinic in Ohio. It was a nine-hour drive.

Gaines started the challenge with a “small, laughable amount” of peanut butter, Tritt recalls. Fifteen minutes later, he ate a bit more. Then some more. Over several hours he chomped a dozen Reese’s peanut butter cups. And he never reacted. 

The test proved Gaines had outgrown his allergy. That makes him one of the lucky few. Many children outgrow some food allergies by the time they enter school. But eight out of every 10 kids with allergies to peanuts or tree nuts will remain allergic.

Freedom and failure

Gian Lagemann, a high school senior in Saratoga, Calif., is allergic to 11 kinds of nuts, including peanuts (which actually is not a nut; it’s a legume). When he started kindergarten, his mother brought “no nuts allowed” signs to the classroom. She asked other parents to tell her whenever they brought in food — so she could make sure it was safe for Gian. Every day Gian ate his lunch at a designated peanut-free table.

Several years ago, Gian’s mom told her son about a peanut OIT trial. The study was starting nearby at Stanford University. “For most of my life, I haven’t been able to eat things where the ingredient labels say ‘may contain peanuts’ or ‘processed in a facility with peanuts,’” Gian says. “Once she explained that [after the trial] I’d be able to eat those foods, I was pretty happy. I was sold.”

Thanks to an experimental peanut-allergy treatment called oral immunotherapy, high-school student Gian Lagemann can now dig into M&Ms. It’s something he previously had to avoid because its label notes that it “may contain peanuts.”Luci Lagemann

At the start of the trial, his family bought a bag of peanut flour. For about six months, Gian took his dose each day after dinner. He doesn’t like the taste of peanuts. So he often mixed his dose into a spoonful of chocolate ice cream. The dose started at 1.3 milligrams of peanut protein (about 1/200th the amount in a peanut). Over the six-month trial it went up to 240 milligrams (0.008 ounce, or a little less than one peanut’s worth).

More broadly, some 8,000 U.S. patients have tried such an oral therapy. Typically, about one in five will withdraw because of side effects or anxiety. Completing such a trial takes focus and discipline — like playing sports. But, Gian recalls, “They told us with every dose we took, our body was just going to get stronger.”

Participants also learned to expect some allergic reactions. “If you’re going to build your immune muscle against a food allergy, you know you’re going to have a little ‘ache’ during the process,” says Kari Nadeau. This Stanford allergist was a leader of the trial. 

Gian felt a few such responses during the study. “My throat would feel a little tight for 15 minutes,” he says. “But after that, it was fine.” So he persevered. And it paid off. When the trial ended, he could eat a full peanut without having an allergic reaction. That means Gian now can safely eat candy with labels warning they’re made in facilities that process nuts. “I was able to try Kit Kats for the first time, and Milky Ways,” Gian says. 

Two years ago, Isaac also tried this oral peanut therapy. At the time, he was 13. But his experiences were quite different. During the treatment he suffered sinus and gastrointestinal troubles. He also had an anaphylactic reaction. Six months in, Isaac dropped out. He quit because he had developed an immune condition called eosinophilic esophagitis (Ee-oh-sin-oh-FILL-ick Ee-SOF-uh-JY-tis). The oral therapy triggers it in a small share of people.

And there’s something else to keep in mind: People could lose their desensitization to peanut once they end the oral therapy. That finding was confirmed in a 2019 study by Nadeau’s team. For many people, effective treatment might have to continue long-term.

Other treatments

Some people have taken part in research trials testing a different treatment for peanut allergy — a skin patch. Instead of eating bits of peanut by mouth, patients every day stick a coin-sized disc onto their back or upper arm. Each disc contains a quarter-milligram of peanut protein. That’s about a thousandth as much as what’s in a peanut. (By comparison, Aimmune’s capsules start with twice that much. Over months, patients then take doses that increase to 1, 10, 20, 100 and 300 milligrams.) From the patch, peanut proteins seep through the skin but do not enter the blood. Peanut patches are therefore less likely to cause anaphylaxis than is the oral therapy.

DBV Technologies in France makes the patch. This company conducted a year-long trial of its product in 356 children with peanut allergies. Nine in every 10 participants finished the trial. The most common side effect was a skin rash at the patch site. However, this trial didn’t work as well as the company had hoped. By the end of the study, only a little more than one in every three patients treated could safely eat the “exit dose” of one to three peanuts. The study leaders reported their findings in the March 12, 2019 Journal of the American Medical Association. 

Still, the patch has worked wonders for some. In 2012, Sharon Wong was desperate. Her son’s allergies to peanuts and tree nuts had intensified to an alarming degree. Once during a shopping trip, he went into a coughing fit while walking past a batch of freshly baked walnut cookies. At a restaurant buffet, he started vomiting after merely looking at a steamy tray of pesto pasta. (Pesto is made with pine nuts.)

“It was really awful,” recalls Wong. “We cannot control the air he breathes. But we didn’t want to keep him confined at home. We wanted him to be able to go shopping, to go down the street, to go to friends’ homes and not stress about his allergies.”

That year she enrolled her son, then nine years old, in an earlier-stage peanut patch trial in the San Francisco Bay area of California. At first, it took just 1/240th of a peanut to trigger an allergic reaction. After two years on the patch, he could tolerate about six peanuts.

Egg is one of the most common food allergies in children. Research shows that more than two-thirds of kids will outgrow their egg allergy by age 16.denizya/iStock/Getty Images Plus

“We feel more comfortable about traveling longer distances and dining in restaurants with precautions in place,” Wong wrote in a blog about the patch trial. “Each mini-success gives us confidence and improves our quality of life. My son is happier and healthier.”

In August, the FDA plans to review data on the peanut patch and recommend if it should be approved. DBV Technologies is also researching and developing patches to treat milk and egg allergies. And as for oral therapies, Aimmune recently started a new trial for its egg-allergy treatment. The company is also developing an oral therapy for walnut allergy.

Scientists are studying other related approaches, too. One is an immune therapy that uses liquid droplets containing allergens. These are placed under the tongue rather than swallowed directly. Edwin Kim, an allergist at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, in Chapel Hill, led one study of children treated for three to five years with this sublingual therapy. All had peanut allergies. Of the 37 kids who completed the study, two in every three could now consume 750 milligrams (0.03 ounce) or more of the peanut allergen. Kim, whose center has helped conduct studies for DBV and Aimmune (among other companies), reported the findings last November in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Additional experimental treatments block other parts of the immune response to allergens. Some act together with oral therapy, allowing fewer allergic reactions during therapy. Others supply helpful gut microbes that seem to guard against food allergies. And one company is developing a toothpaste to treat peanut allergy.

In the end, each family must decide whether to seek an emerging treatment or stick with just avoiding exposure to the sensitizing foods. Treatments require diligence. They’re not yet widely available. And they don’t always work. But if the allergy is unbearable, trying a new treatment might prove worth the time and risk. Clearly, concludes Stukus, the Ohio doctor, “food-allergy management is not one-size-fits-all.”

New success in treating allergies to peanuts and other foods published first on https://triviaqaweb.tumblr.com/

[foodtechhacker-blog]

Adventures in Nutrition: The Unexpected Problems and Dangers of Plant Foods

We are surprisingly ineffective at digesting many plant-based foods, causing their nutritional value to be overstated and if we could fully digest them, our definition of what is edible may have to change.  

Breaking a Biological Barrier Better than Evolution

The quest to break down cellulose in foods in a controlled way has fascinated me for over a decade now. My early attempts in this area had limited success and resulted in a early morning raid of my home by a narcotics task force. (No narcotics were found nor were there any charges pressed, but that is a story for another blog post.) Suffice to say, cellulose is an incredibly robust molecule and the techniques involved in breaking it down are pretty extreme.

Even with billions of years of evolution, nature hasn’t been able to find a way to readily break down cellulose, and I wanted to solve the problem in what is comparatively the blink of an eye. And being the compulsive experimenter that I was, I soon would find a way to break down cellulose, and this time without attracting the attention of the police! Unfortunately, it would end up making a number of people rather sick in totally unexpected ways.

My focus turned to physical approaches to attack cellulose, as enzymes required a relatively narrow and low pH range to be efficient, often low enough to damage other organic compounds in the food. Acid based approaches destroyed all the other organic compounds. So physical was definitely the best route, and it seemed like a blender would be the way. My target model was trying to make a perfectly smooth wild blueberry smoothie, because most blenders didn’t come close and it was obvious in the restroom there was a lot of antioxidants going unabsorbed from typical blenders.

After extensive testing and side by side (and a lot of product returns) I settled on the Cleanblend as the most powerful blender available for general purpose smoothie-type blending applications. Honestly, I feel this blender is really only on the edge of unlocking the world of plants for our digestion. Starting with deeply frozen berries, I would usually have to run it to the point of them being fully melted and even slightly warm from the mere friction of the very sharp stainless steel Japanese blades. Sometimes, even that was not enough, and I would freeze the smoothie into ice cubes and repeat, or I would let it keep going, even as the friction would heat the slurry to a rolling boil with steam gushing out.

Although it was a struggle, I was able to cross a barrier that had been pretty much out of reach previously. I was able to actually rip apart celluose and lignans to a useful degree, breaking down plant structures so that we could fully absorb their constituents. Moreover, because I did this through physical action, and in many cases without significant heat, it would largely leave all the other complex organic compounds intact and fully available to the human body. And the end result would be totally smooth, so one could consume even things goats might not like very much, such as blackberry vines.

Basically, I succeeded in augmenting the human digestive system so that it could access pretty much everything in plant based foods.

The Good

Fully unlocking berries for digestion has been an almost universal win. Combined with non-glycemic sweeteners, a powerful blender makes wild blueberries and cranberries a truly delicious smoothie drink. The blender would reduce the seeds and skins down completely, yielding a smoothie that has a texture more like a peach or mango smoothie. The high levels of mostly water soluble antioxidants were quickly and easily absorbed, and the smoothie would provide a distinct energizing effect almost like a cup of coffee.

Overall, experiments using berries came out universally favorably. Generally speaking, the more you would blend, the better it would taste, the better you would absorb it, and the better you would feel. The distinctively stimulating levels of antioxidants was really unexpected and visual fecal monitoring verified that virtually all of the anthocyanin antioxidants were being absorbed. I also loved the effects on acai puree, paired with wild blueberries I could actually create a smoothie that could keep me awake at night if consumed too close to dinner, simply from so many antioxidants.

Many vegetables also responded well to blending. Most antioxidant rich solanaceae “vegetables” (tomatoes, peppers, etc.) were extremely delicious blended down and definitely seemed to be a bit more energizing when eaten. Squash were pleasant tasting, but did not exhibit any apparent digestive or nutrition absorption alterations. Onions were very nice too. Celery was unremarkable but added a pleasant mild taste. Typically, I woulds make a hot soup with vegetables, although cold V8 style drinks were quite nice too.

Some unexpected greens turned out to be very nice in savory soup applications, such as onion greens and blackberry vines. Blackberry vines, if pre-blended, actually had a slight berry note and mild flavor and made a nice addition to cold fruit smoothies. They seemed to have something beneficial as the smoothies seemed more satisfying, complete and energizing.

The Weird and Bad

Using a blender to extend the digestive tract demonstrated that we are not very effective at absorbing a lot of nutrients. For example, I can eat dried goji berries until my stomach is physically full without any upset. It’s clear that I’m missing a lot of the lycopene by the effect on fecal coloration. But in a smoothie form, there is much less fecal color effect, yet I can only handle a few ounces dried goji in a sitting - any more and I get a characteristic “mineral upset stomach” effect. This suggests that despite the high levels of minerals and antioxidants in gojis are, we can only absorb a relatively small fraction of them without the assistance of a blender.

The whole brassica family is rich in indigestible sugars, encased in plant cellulose. Also encased in the plant cellulose is their purportedly beneficial compounds. Blending definitely did an incredible job at releasing the indigestible sugars, causing gas to a degree I had never experienced before from modest servings of said vegetables. This suggests that typical ways of eating brassicas fail to give us access to most of their beneficial compounds.

Now, most of this stuff - we suck at absorbing nutrition from a lot of the best “superfoods” out there - won’t come as a surprise to people who have studied our evolution and physiology. What may come to a surprise is just that some food we eat can be downright dangerous if we fully digest it. The best example is the common mango.

I started making these amazing mango smoothies. Everyone loved them. They were buttery smooth, made with fully peeled frozen organic mango pieces. Then people started breaking out in rashes. I even developed mild rashes. One person got severe rashes and itching, to the point it made it nearly impossible for him to sleep and he sought extensive medical evaluation at Stanford. It took over 4 months to fully clear up. Nobody would believe me it was my smoothies, as many had eaten huge amounts of mangos at various times in their lives, but I’m absolutely convinced it was in fact my smoothies.

Mangos are related to poison oak and poison ivy and contain urushiol. Generally, the levels in the fruit are considered negligible, but I’ve never seen an analysis. All I know is that once I began blending the fruit down like crazy, people started getting rashes. And the rashes went away after I eliminated my mango smoothies, even though they protested. The rashes also responded to treatment protocols for urushiol-related autoimmune skin reactions.

I also had some interesting experiences blending citrus - I had a severe bloating and gained over 20 pounds of water weight temporarily, when I had never exhibited a significant allergy prior. What was different? I blended the peeled fruit whole super extensively.

After the mango and citrus incidents, I pretty much decided it was time to stop blending new plant-based foods, especially fruit. Even seemingly common foods seem to hide harmful compounds. I shudder to think what might have happened if I started blending grains…

Where To Go From Here

Most of our nutritional assumptions about the nutritional value of plants are probably significantly overstated, as they rely on absolute chemical analysis and do not factor in absorption which is clearly relatively poor. I also believe that many plant-based foods harbor allergenic / inflammatory compounds that are not sufficiently recognized but probably contribute to health harms over the long term similar to gluten’s inflammatory effects.

More research is clearly required here, but I have no idea who would fund this kind of thing. There is no “anti-fruit” lobby. There is no specific industry that stands to benefit from reduced fruit consumption. These are hard questions with uncomfortable answers for the status quo.

Direct comments and discussion to my Twitter.

#plantbased #cleanblend #blender #adventuresinnutrition

[clarissaexplainingitall]

alright, summary of yesterday’s medical bullshit, because if not i’m just going to sit here in a lump of blankets all day and sulk which i feel like i’m probably entitled to at this point but is probably still not healthy anyway, but here’s where i stand:

neurosurgeon redid c-spine xrays three times because radiology fucked them up, but ruled out CCI, and gave second opinion on MRIs ruling out tethered cord, so there’s nothing structural they can do anything about. and then he just washed his hands of me after like two hours of xray BS, no referrals out, no ideas, nothing, because of course he did because he’s a surgeon and there’s no surgical fix, so that was maddeningly unhelpful, but at least we checked i guess. but also, fuck, that was like the last idea anyone had,

it’ll take months to get into mayo or any of the stanford clinics, and in the meantime i have failed every single trial medication my doctor is willing to put me on so i have nothing to to there but just continue to degenerate

dad wants to try crowdsourcing my case a la silicon valley startup, and frankly i’m desperate enough to fucking just like. let him try.

i’m seeing an osteopath tomorrow so hopefully even if he has zero idea how to solve he can do something a la acupuncturist

allergist confirmed i’m super fucking allergic to basically almost all of the plant pollen types we tested for, enough that it’s likely why i’m having allergic reactions to most of the raw produce i’m eating despite testing just under the threshold for all of the ones we tested for - i’m reacting to the pollen in the produce. so i am probably going to have to go off the last trial medication we’re waiting to fail so i can go on allergy shots, so i can actually eat foods without having to hyperprocess/cook into oblivion everything i eat. 

she also wants to test me for IgG 3 levels bc apparently EDS folks can be deficient and she thinks that might be why my immune system is shitty, but UNFORTUNATELY she ran her mouth and told me how you treat that if it IS the case

which is

infusions

and my veins are too fucked up for regular infusions, because shitty nurses blew too many, which would likely mean, and she unfortunately said the words,

it’d be PICC line

#medical shitshow #like homeboy you've read my file we don't say the word PICC line in this house #that's a bridge nobody is allowed to even fucking CROSS until we come close to touching it

[krismousejoy-blog]

Food Fight: The Love and the Strife (Part 1)

The Last Five Years. Look at that! Only a theatre nerd like me would get a kick out of making life parallels with musicals. But seriously, the last five years have been life altering in such a divergent way. My little stream of life is now flowing in the opposite direction. 

It all started at local Mexican restaurants. I was a regular at both Celia’s and Palo Alto Sol on any given Friday night. I wouldn’t say that they offered the best or the most authentic Mexican food, but they absolutely hit the spot. No question. Solid comfort Mexican food that was affordable and made for a good date night spot. I absolutely love mole poblano and they did a pretty good job with theirs. Warm, spicy, creamy chocolaty saucy goodness. Yes, please! Just briefly describing it now makes my mouth salivate. If only I could have that flavor in my mouth for a moment! Simple joy. I am going somewhere with this story, I promise. Food memories (and food in general) just derail me sometimes. It’s life, what can I say!?!

So what all happened there? 

It started slowly with minor stomach pains - the feeling of eating too much, too quickly. Nothing that a little Pepto Bismol couldn’t handle. At first. The weeks went by and the pains worsened, but it seemed only after eating at my favorite Mexican staples. I didn’t understand what was happening. 

I grew up on Mexican food. It was not uncommon for me to consume it every day, for multiple meals. And I never grew tired of it. I even prided myself on the heat I could take in my chilies. The hotter the better! Bring on the fire, bring on the tears. My Friday evening treat rituals turned into weekends in bed, in complete suffering and loss. It got so bad that I couldn’t sit comfortably in the car after leaving the restaurant. My stomach would swell to the point where I looked like I was a solid 8 months pregnant, coupled with shooting, stabbing, twisting and jabbing pains; it was an awful experience. Something was going terribly wrong and changing within me. Pardon for being overly dramatic, but I was devastated over this. Food is culture. When you grow up identifying with a particular culture and then something out of your control forces you out of that culture, you experience a true sense of loss. I felt like I was being exiled from my sense of place, my home, my life. 

I was determined, however, to continue trying to eat. I thought - maybe it’s some new spice they’ve added to their recipes? But as time went on these terrible episodes extended beyond those two restaurants. It seemed to be happening every time I had any Mexican food - or a combination of those traditional ingredients. The curious side of me started to do some personal investigation with my food. I started withholding things from my dishes - no sauteed onions, no raw onions, no raw peppers, etc. I went to mild salsas or requested to hold the heat in the dishes. (Truly sad moments when your heart and mouth crave those flavors.) It became evident, relatively quickly, that I had a problem with onions. No! They are such a wonderful powerhouse of flavor and a staple in most dishes - Mexican or not. I used to eat them like apples as a child. (I’m not kidding.) How could my body all of a sudden not be able to handle these delicious and quite nutritious bulbs? 

I started to research the differences between allergy and intolerance. When Benadryl helped to ease the swelling and calm the pain, I began to realize that my body was developing a food allergy. However, I wasn’t positive or in my heart convinced. I didn’t want it to be true. I just kept thinking that this was a phase, something that was randomly bothering me and that I would just “kick”. But I did what seemed best and most reasonable and started avoiding onions in everything. 

That seemed to work for a little bit. And then - SURPRISE - more swelling and pain. Now what? 

Even by withholding the onions, I would have further such episodes. Complete debilitating stomach pain. The kind that even the fetal position, heat pads, and a slew of supposed stomach pain medications wouldn’t bring relief. Even the Benadryl wasn’t really helping. However, I was still not willing to accept this body shift within me. I kept making mental excuses - I’m stressed, I’ve eaten too much, I’ve eaten too many varied foods in the meal, too rich of food, etc. You name it, I claimed the excuse. I didn’t want my life of food to change. 

I LOVE food. I hate the term “foodie”, but for the lack of a better representation, I fit the bill. I am most definitely not a food “snob”, though I love and value the fine dining experience and truly appreciate every ingredient and the responsibility behind its source and inclusion. I LIVE TO TASTE. I felt that I was losing grip on such a huge part of my being - like sand through a sieve.

And then it HAPPENED. The slap in the face, punch to the nose, brutal WAKE-UP CALL TO REALITY. 

As I mentioned, I was already carrying around Benadryl with me to counter the responses my body was experiencing with food. I had a business lunch at a newer Thai restaurant in San Francisco. It was a significant moment for me because it was one of the first business deal lunches I had arranged. I ordered some coconut soup and asked if there was onion in the broth. I was told no. So I didn’t ask for it to be noted to ensure that onion was withheld from the dish. When the soup arrived, it had green onions sprinkled on top as a garnish. I didn’t want to make a fuss at the lunch and send the soup back, so I figured that I would just eat around the garnish. I wasn’t consuming them - I should be fine. Right? You guessed it. Wrong! Within a few spoonfuls I could tell something wasn’t right. I started feeling my body temperature rise, I felt flush. My neck muscles began to clench. I looked at my colleague and she instantly knew something was WRONG. I was flooded with thoughts. I didn’t want the embarrassment of making a scene. So I reached into my purse grabbed several Benadryl pills, quickly swallowed them down and excused myself from the table. I indicated that I wasn’t feeling well and that I would return to the office leaving my colleagues to handle the lunch alone. As I walked the few SF blocks back to the office, the chest pressure and wheezing began to intensify. I just kept thinking - I’ll be ok, I’ll be ok! I just needed to get back to the office to rest. When I got to the office, my breathing was heavy and strained. I laid down on the couch and just tried to remain calm. I didn’t want to make such a fuss by calling the paramedics. I just kept thinking that the feeling would pass. The amount of Benadryl I took made me very drowsy and I obviously went to sleep because I was awakened by my colleagues returning to the office with concern in their eyes. I was fortunate. Very fortunate. At that moment I realized my INCREDIBLE STUPIDITY. That situation could have ended far differently. (For anyone reading this - do NOT do what I did. If you begin to experience changes to your breathing, call 911. Do not wait. You do not know how fast things can change in your body and seconds matter. More on this later.) 

That was IT for me. My mind caved to the reality that my body had changed and I needed to get help. The next day I made an appointment with an allergist through Stanford Hospital and it was the start of a whole new life program. 

Sweet, caring, and swift-acting Dr. T performed a skin scratch test along with blood work and determined that was indeed ALLERGIC to not only onions, but peppers, tree nut and...corn! (Among a few other things.) It all made sense. Even though I was avoiding onions, I was still having episodes because I was still being exposed to these other allergens. She prescribed me my first EpiPen and told me that I needed to do my due diligence and remove all these foods from my diet. She said she wanted me reading packaging labels, researching ingredient listings and ensuring my food didn’t come in contact with these foods. 

I felt like the foundation of my life had crumbled from beneath me and I was thrust into a whole new world, a world that looked scary and dark; I was honestly frightened. 

Little did I know that this would be the TIP of the ICEBERG. 

As I said, it’s been five years and there is much to tell of my experiences. I know that I am not alone in these, but the more people share, the more is out there for people to learn from, connect to and build a community of support around. That’s why I have decided to put myself out there. 

#food allergies #food #sanfrancisco #mexican food #food is culture

[azveille]

New treatments for peanut allergies sound promising, but questions remain

Whenever I see a report touting possible new peanut allergy treatments, I devour it. I can’t help it. It’s an occupational hazard for any health journalist whose reporting specialty and medical history intertwine.

I write about the business of health care, focusing on how consumers interact with the system — what we pay, what we get and why American care costs so much. But in this particular instance, I have another kind of authority: 26 years of life-threatening allergies to nuts and peanuts.

So when Brisbane, Calif.-based Aimmune Therapeutics recently sparked optimistic headlines after releasing clinical trial results that its allergy product, AR101, would reduce the risks linked to an accidental exposure to peanuts, I received the usual wave of questions from friends, co-workers and my parents: Would you try it? Could this help?

Aimmune is just one company eyeing the prize. Childhood peanut allergy diagnoses increased more than 20 percent in the United States from 2010 to 2017. The global market for relief is worth as much as $2 billion. The French drugmaker DBV Technologies is also working to commercialize a peanut allergy patch. Other companies, including industry giant Sanofi, are following their lead.

If any one of them succeeds, it could change my life.

My friends call nuts “Shefali poison.” My allergies to peanuts first surfaced when, as a 15-month-old, I picked Thai noodles off an aunt’s plate and developed hives on my face. A few months later, I ended up in the hospital after I tasted my mom’s kaju barfi — an Indian dessert with cashews (to which I am also allergic). Nobody in my family had ever heard of peanut allergies.

Writer Shefali Luthra, second from right, as a seventh-grader. She says she has carried epinephrine for her allergies to nuts and peanuts since she was 7 years old. (Courtesy of the Luthra Family)

I’ve carried epinephrine since I was 7 years old. My friends are trained to inject it in my leg, the standard procedure for an emergency allergen exposure, although I luckily haven’t had to take a shot of it since I was 4. (Another child in my Montessori class had a peanut butter sandwich for lunch.) My mom also recalls another incident when she had to pick me up early from day care because the class was making peanut butter bird feeders. And I spent too many years of pre-adolescence eating lunch at the designated “peanut-free table.” Now, I can only dream of flying to visit my parents for Christmas without worrying about whether my seatmate’s snacks might induce anaphylaxis. And yes, kissing someone who has just eaten peanut butter would put my life in danger.

But are these pills and patches a true breakthrough for people like me?

I approached the question as I would any other assignment. I read the research, called immunologists, and spoke with economists and drug pricing experts about whether these treatments offer meaningful benefit.

One of the first things I heard: “We are still in the infancy of these treatments,” said Corinne Keet, a pediatric allergist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Medically, there’s a lot we don’t know about the risks, how much these drugs could help and how long any effects would last. “None of these treatments have been shown to prevent fatal reaction,” Keet said.

The idea behind them is to desensitize people. Aimmune’s “peanut pill” is modeled on the oral therapies some specialists use to slowly wean allergic kids back on to nuts. This approach has gained popularity in recent years, especially for children with multiple allergies, or when it’s a substance particularly hard to avoid.

A colleague’s young daughter, who was born with multiple allergies, used that very treatment, as did a younger cousin of mine who, for the first several years of her life, was allergic to — not joking — almost everything but fruits and vegetables. In my case, this therapy came into vogue after I was too old to have a good chance of it weakening my sensitivities.

How it works: Kids ingest tiny, escalating doses of peanut protein. They then stay on peanut protein — Aimmune recommends the pill, although other doctors I spoke to suggested a little bit of peanut — as a maintenance drug.

But it’s unclear how much the new therapies would improve upon that ad hoc oral immunotherapy that are already being offered by allergists. Instead of drugs, they use store-bought peanut protein, usually defatted peanut flour available online for as little as $1 a pound. This method isn’t approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and often isn’t covered by insurance — although doctors’ visits can be billed as “food challenges” or other visits that are typically covered.

In contrast, Aimmune’s product is expected to cost between $5,000 and $10,000 for the first six months of use, and $300 to $400 per month after, although the company declined to confirm these, or provide other, pricing estimates. DBV, Aimmune’s chief rival, has come up with a wearable skin patch that would transmit tiny, desensitizing protein doses. Analysts predict DBV’s will cost more than $6,000 for a year’s supply. The company says it has not yet determined a price. ­Joseph Becker, a company spokesman, said it does not view oral immunotherapy as a competitor.

“There’s excitement, there’s caution and a lot of unanswered questions,” warned Erwin Gelfand, a pediatrics and immunology professor at the University of Colorado’s School of Medicine.

According to Aimmune’s results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, two-thirds of allergic children could ingest 600 milligrams of peanut without harm after going through treatment.

To be clear, even with Aimmune’s help, someone like me still couldn’t safely eat PB&J. But it would desensitize me enough that I could taste a friend’s wine if he recently ate peanut-topped pad thai.

Still, the treatment comes with caveats.

While 496 children started the trial, only 372 completed it. Of the 20 percent who backed out, half did so because of adverse events. About 14 percent of children getting treatment still had to take epinephrine, and one experienced anaphylaxis, a severe reaction that can involve rashes, vomiting, a tightening throat and difficulty breathing. (For an allergic kid, even the possibility is maybe one of the most terrifying things you can imagine.)

Children who completed the regimen still had to take small doses of peanut protein daily, either the Aimmune drug or a controlled peanut serving. Statistically significant benefits were clear only in patients through age 17, although Daniel Adelman, the company’s chief medical officer, said Aimmune plans to do a follow-up trial for adults.

And the results don’t indicate who would probably benefit, or how long improvements would last. That’s impossible to know, Adelman said. He said, however, accidental peanut exposure is scary enough — and pure avoidance ineffective enough — that the treatment is still worth it.

But all this means that anyone who has gone through Aimmune’s regimen would still want to carry epinephrine, and try to avoid peanuts.

“Not everybody responds well,” Gelfand said. When you factor in those details, the results are “not all that impressive.”

Tina Sindher, a pediatric allergist at Stanford University, pointed out that the Aimmune pill is a repackaged, clinically tested version of that homegrown oral therapy many allergists have been using. DBV’s peanut patch, Viaskin, to a lesser extent, is the same — more convenient, perhaps, and more regulated, but still a variation on the existing medical approach.

“This concept has been around for a long time,” she said.

What’s new is the addition of labor, standardization and federal oversight — which companies then say demonstrates increased value.

It highlights a pattern I’ve noticed from my reporting: Drugmakers develop medication that refines a low-tech remedy, run a clinical trial to secure FDA approval and then sell it at a higher price.

For pharma, it’s a logical way to profit. But it puts patients in a bind.

“The hard outcome is we have these new products and they’re just about as good or slightly better than what we have,” said Nicholson Price, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan Law School, who studies drug pricing. “And they’re a lot more expensive.” He noted: “That’s when the choices get hard, and we’re not good at making hard choices.”

Also skeptical? The closest authority I know: my mother, who raised me with peanut allergies when they were more or less unheard of, and is now doing it all over again for my 10-year-old brother. (Another brother, my twin, was allergy-free until about a year ago. Adult onset peanut allergy isn’t that uncommon)

“It’s not worth it,” my mom told me. Her concern? Getting any of us to maintain a peanut dose — without knowing how long that reduced sensitivity would last — could induce what she called “a false sense of security.”

This thinking isn’t out of line, Sindher said. The way these studies are touted, she said, often “gloss over the fact that there’s a lot we don’t know.”

So for now, I’ll have to maintain my distance from the newsroom stash of Reese’s Pieces. My epinephrine and I aren’t parting ways anytime soon.

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit news service covering health issues that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

[dinafbrownil]

Conflicting COVID Messages Create Cloud Of Confusion Around Public Health And Prevention

Regina Fargis didn’t know what to do.

Fargis runs Summit Hills — a health and retirement community in Spartanburg, South Carolina, that offers skilled nursing, activities and communal meals for its residents, most of whom are over 60, the highest-risk category for coronavirus complications. In South Carolina, more than a hundred new cases were emerging daily. So she took precautions: no visitors, hand sanitizer everywhere and regular reminders for residents about the importance of social distancing.

For a time, it worked. Many similar facilities were hit hard by the virus, but Summit Hills remained COVID-free. Summit Hills’ first cases didn’t emerge until mid-June. Three residents and four employees have now tested positive and are being quarantined. For months, though, Fargis was able to protect her residents.

Still, even under the best circumstances, she couldn’t prevent one thing. By mid-May, two residents had become convinced that the COVID-19 death count — which has surpassed 125,000 people in the U.S. — was a talking point manufactured by Democrats. Some people may be dying, they said, but it wasn’t actually that severe. They didn’t think her precautions were necessary.

“I don’t know how to respond, to tell you the truth,” Fargis said. “If someone has that kind of mindset, what kind of conversation do you have” to convince them of the pandemic’s severity and the need for strict precautions?

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Since the start of the pandemic, the public has been barraged by conflicting messages in part because the country is dealing with a new and still poorly understood virus and in part because politicians and scientists deliver conflicting advice. But rumors, misinformation and outright falsehoods — some intentionally propagated — have also flourished in that cauldron of confusion.

As the nation reopens for business and retreats from protective stay-at-home orders, those widely circulating lies could prove deadly.

NewsGuard, a startup by two former journalists that vets the internet for misinformation, has identified 217 websites in Europe and the United States that publish “materially false” information about COVID-19. The volume is so great that NewsGuard, which was launched to check political fabrications, has pivoted to full-time COVID-19 fact-checking.

The misinformation includes the “Plandemic” video, Facebook posts claiming 5G cell networks cause the virus and articles suggesting it can be cured with garlic or using a combination of hot water with baking soda and lemon.

Health scares always spawn scurrilous stories. But with COVID-19, “there’s lots of opportunity for misinformation,” said Dhavan Shah, a professor of mass communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

That is particularly true in the United States, where the coronavirus has somehow morphed into a right-versus-left political issue — and Americans increasingly reject information that doesn’t match their leanings.

Research shows people who support the Trump administration and rely on right-leaning news organizations are more likely to believe the virus has been exaggerated. In general, Republicans are more likely, according to recent polling, than Democrats to think that COVID-19 was never a threat and that the worst is over. That possibly contributed to the push for early reopening in some states that had not met the requirements recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for doing so. In many of them, daily case counts are now spiking. And Republicans are less likely than Democrats to don protective masks, which are believed to reduce the spread of the virus. (President Donald Trump famously has refused to wear a mask in public.)

Groups like anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists and immigration opponents have also used the virus to push their own misinformation, per a report from Data & Society, a research institute in New York.

“It’s become a political football now,” said Steven Brill, a co-CEO of NewsGuard. “That tends to get the misinformation and disinformation amplified. People on one side or the other tend to want to amplify what endorses or strengthens their position.”

Misinformation Grows In A Vacuum

Federal health officials from agencies such as the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration usually are tasked with providing the public with understandable, scientifically supported guidance. But the advice from experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has consistently been undermined by Trump, who instead touts unproven treatments and frequently challenges the severity of the virus.

In fact, political figures like Trump have held outsize influence in shaping public understanding. “The news feed abhors a vacuum,” said Jeff Hancock, a professor of communication at Stanford University who has studied the implications of COVID misinformation. “Since the expertise of the CDC and others have been called into question … it exacerbates the problem.”

Experts’ initial confusion about how to respond to a new virus has also allowed for suspicion. When the coronavirus arrived in the United States, the prevailing thought was that asymptomatic patients couldn’t spread it and that people needn’t wear face coverings. Subsequent studies reversed those judgments.

All that helps explain why falsehoods took hold. Researchers from the University of Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism reviewed 225 pieces of online misinformation about COVID-19. Misinformation spread by political figures and celebrities made up only 20% of the sample but accounted for 69% of engagement.

Independent groups, including NewsGuard and Hancock’s Stanford Social Media Lab, have launched projects meant to combat misinformation — teaching older people through peer-to-peer tutoring to navigate digital content or launching websites that point people toward more credible data and analysis. But these efforts, usually difficult, are almost impossible now in the age of social distancing.

The “volume and velocity” of social media spread means claims spread farther, faster, Shah said.

At Summit Hills, the politicization of COVID-19 has “without a doubt” made it harder for Fargis, its executive director, to convince her residents — many of whom would typically look to the federal government for credible information — of the pandemic’s severity.

Some cons deliberately target seniors, offering more than misinformation: Bad actors pretended to have access to their victims’ stimulus checks, asking for bank account and Social Security information. Others sell fake protective equipment.

At Hebrew SeniorLife, a hospital and living center in Massachusetts, which operates rehab centers and senior-living facilities around the Boston area, misinformation and online scams — such as fake fundraisers on Facebook for first responders — are serious concerns, said Rachel Lerner, the organization’s general counsel.

Older Americans experience a “perfect storm,” Hancock said. “They’re more susceptible to the virus. They are targets of misinformation and online scams at a much higher rate than regular folks are.”

When South Carolina began opening up, Fargis decided to see if the numbers of new COVID-19 cases declined significantly before lifting precautions. Now, with the virus in her facility, she has no intention of letting up social distancing rules and other prevention strategies.

And since May, at least one of her residents has since come around to understanding the pandemic’s severity. But another, she said, still emails her arguing that the virus has been overblown or that social distancing does not work and suggesting that unproven medicines — like hydroxychloroquine or beta-glucans — can treat or prevent the illness.

“We’d all be far better off if we kept those nonsensical remarks out of the news,” she said. “The more misinformation we have, the more likely we are going to have lives at stake.”

from Updates By Dina https://khn.org/news/conflicting-covid-messages-create-cloud-of-confusion-around-public-health-and-prevention/

[gordonwilliamsweb]

Conflicting COVID Messages Create Cloud Of Confusion Around Public Health And Prevention

Regina Fargis didn’t know what to do.

Fargis runs Summit Hills — a health and retirement community in Spartanburg, South Carolina, that offers skilled nursing, activities and communal meals for its residents, most of whom are over 60, the highest-risk category for coronavirus complications. In South Carolina, more than a hundred new cases were emerging daily. So she took precautions: no visitors, hand sanitizer everywhere and regular reminders for residents about the importance of social distancing.

For a time, it worked. Many similar facilities were hit hard by the virus, but Summit Hills remained COVID-free. Summit Hills’ first cases didn’t emerge until mid-June. Three residents and four employees have now tested positive and are being quarantined. For months, though, Fargis was able to protect her residents.

Still, even under the best circumstances, she couldn’t prevent one thing. By mid-May, two residents had become convinced that the COVID-19 death count — which has surpassed 125,000 people in the U.S. — was a talking point manufactured by Democrats. Some people may be dying, they said, but it wasn’t actually that severe. They didn’t think her precautions were necessary.

“I don’t know how to respond, to tell you the truth,” Fargis said. “If someone has that kind of mindset, what kind of conversation do you have” to convince them of the pandemic’s severity and the need for strict precautions?

Don't Miss A Story

Subscribe to KHN’s free Weekly Edition newsletter.

Sign Up

Please confirm your email address below:

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Since the start of the pandemic, the public has been barraged by conflicting messages in part because the country is dealing with a new and still poorly understood virus and in part because politicians and scientists deliver conflicting advice. But rumors, misinformation and outright falsehoods — some intentionally propagated — have also flourished in that cauldron of confusion.

As the nation reopens for business and retreats from protective stay-at-home orders, those widely circulating lies could prove deadly.

NewsGuard, a startup by two former journalists that vets the internet for misinformation, has identified 217 websites in Europe and the United States that publish “materially false” information about COVID-19. The volume is so great that NewsGuard, which was launched to check political fabrications, has pivoted to full-time COVID-19 fact-checking.

The misinformation includes the “Plandemic” video, Facebook posts claiming 5G cell networks cause the virus and articles suggesting it can be cured with garlic or using a combination of hot water with baking soda and lemon.

Health scares always spawn scurrilous stories. But with COVID-19, “there’s lots of opportunity for misinformation,” said Dhavan Shah, a professor of mass communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

That is particularly true in the United States, where the coronavirus has somehow morphed into a right-versus-left political issue — and Americans increasingly reject information that doesn’t match their leanings.

Research shows people who support the Trump administration and rely on right-leaning news organizations are more likely to believe the virus has been exaggerated. In general, Republicans are more likely, according to recent polling, than Democrats to think that COVID-19 was never a threat and that the worst is over. That possibly contributed to the push for early reopening in some states that had not met the requirements recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for doing so. In many of them, daily case counts are now spiking. And Republicans are less likely than Democrats to don protective masks, which are believed to reduce the spread of the virus. (President Donald Trump famously has refused to wear a mask in public.)

Groups like anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists and immigration opponents have also used the virus to push their own misinformation, per a report from Data & Society, a research institute in New York.

“It’s become a political football now,” said Steven Brill, a co-CEO of NewsGuard. “That tends to get the misinformation and disinformation amplified. People on one side or the other tend to want to amplify what endorses or strengthens their position.”

Misinformation Grows In A Vacuum

Federal health officials from agencies such as the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration usually are tasked with providing the public with understandable, scientifically supported guidance. But the advice from experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has consistently been undermined by Trump, who instead touts unproven treatments and frequently challenges the severity of the virus.

In fact, political figures like Trump have held outsize influence in shaping public understanding. “The news feed abhors a vacuum,” said Jeff Hancock, a professor of communication at Stanford University who has studied the implications of COVID misinformation. “Since the expertise of the CDC and others have been called into question … it exacerbates the problem.”

Experts’ initial confusion about how to respond to a new virus has also allowed for suspicion. When the coronavirus arrived in the United States, the prevailing thought was that asymptomatic patients couldn’t spread it and that people needn’t wear face coverings. Subsequent studies reversed those judgments.

All that helps explain why falsehoods took hold. Researchers from the University of Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism reviewed 225 pieces of online misinformation about COVID-19. Misinformation spread by political figures and celebrities made up only 20% of the sample but accounted for 69% of engagement.

Independent groups, including NewsGuard and Hancock’s Stanford Social Media Lab, have launched projects meant to combat misinformation — teaching older people through peer-to-peer tutoring to navigate digital content or launching websites that point people toward more credible data and analysis. But these efforts, usually difficult, are almost impossible now in the age of social distancing.

The “volume and velocity” of social media spread means claims spread farther, faster, Shah said.

At Summit Hills, the politicization of COVID-19 has “without a doubt” made it harder for Fargis, its executive director, to convince her residents — many of whom would typically look to the federal government for credible information — of the pandemic’s severity.

Some cons deliberately target seniors, offering more than misinformation: Bad actors pretended to have access to their victims’ stimulus checks, asking for bank account and Social Security information. Others sell fake protective equipment.

At Hebrew SeniorLife, a hospital and living center in Massachusetts, which operates rehab centers and senior-living facilities around the Boston area, misinformation and online scams — such as fake fundraisers on Facebook for first responders — are serious concerns, said Rachel Lerner, the organization’s general counsel.

Older Americans experience a “perfect storm,” Hancock said. “They’re more susceptible to the virus. They are targets of misinformation and online scams at a much higher rate than regular folks are.”

When South Carolina began opening up, Fargis decided to see if the numbers of new COVID-19 cases declined significantly before lifting precautions. Now, with the virus in her facility, she has no intention of letting up social distancing rules and other prevention strategies.

And since May, at least one of her residents has since come around to understanding the pandemic’s severity. But another, she said, still emails her arguing that the virus has been overblown or that social distancing does not work and suggesting that unproven medicines — like hydroxychloroquine or beta-glucans — can treat or prevent the illness.

“We’d all be far better off if we kept those nonsensical remarks out of the news,” she said. “The more misinformation we have, the more likely we are going to have lives at stake.”

Conflicting COVID Messages Create Cloud Of Confusion Around Public Health And Prevention published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

[stephenmccull]

Conflicting COVID Messages Create Cloud Of Confusion Around Public Health And Prevention

Regina Fargis didn’t know what to do.

Fargis runs Summit Hills — a health and retirement community in Spartanburg, South Carolina, that offers skilled nursing, activities and communal meals for its residents, most of whom are over 60, the highest-risk category for coronavirus complications. In South Carolina, more than a hundred new cases were emerging daily. So she took precautions: no visitors, hand sanitizer everywhere and regular reminders for residents about the importance of social distancing.

For a time, it worked. Many similar facilities were hit hard by the virus, but Summit Hills remained COVID-free. Summit Hills’ first cases didn’t emerge until mid-June. Three residents and four employees have now tested positive and are being quarantined. For months, though, Fargis was able to protect her residents.

Still, even under the best circumstances, she couldn’t prevent one thing. By mid-May, two residents had become convinced that the COVID-19 death count — which has surpassed 125,000 people in the U.S. — was a talking point manufactured by Democrats. Some people may be dying, they said, but it wasn’t actually that severe. They didn’t think her precautions were necessary.

“I don’t know how to respond, to tell you the truth,” Fargis said. “If someone has that kind of mindset, what kind of conversation do you have” to convince them of the pandemic’s severity and the need for strict precautions?

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Since the start of the pandemic, the public has been barraged by conflicting messages in part because the country is dealing with a new and still poorly understood virus and in part because politicians and scientists deliver conflicting advice. But rumors, misinformation and outright falsehoods — some intentionally propagated — have also flourished in that cauldron of confusion.

As the nation reopens for business and retreats from protective stay-at-home orders, those widely circulating lies could prove deadly.

NewsGuard, a startup by two former journalists that vets the internet for misinformation, has identified 217 websites in Europe and the United States that publish “materially false” information about COVID-19. The volume is so great that NewsGuard, which was launched to check political fabrications, has pivoted to full-time COVID-19 fact-checking.

The misinformation includes the “Plandemic” video, Facebook posts claiming 5G cell networks cause the virus and articles suggesting it can be cured with garlic or using a combination of hot water with baking soda and lemon.

Health scares always spawn scurrilous stories. But with COVID-19, “there’s lots of opportunity for misinformation,” said Dhavan Shah, a professor of mass communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

That is particularly true in the United States, where the coronavirus has somehow morphed into a right-versus-left political issue — and Americans increasingly reject information that doesn’t match their leanings.

Research shows people who support the Trump administration and rely on right-leaning news organizations are more likely to believe the virus has been exaggerated. In general, Republicans are more likely, according to recent polling, than Democrats to think that COVID-19 was never a threat and that the worst is over. That possibly contributed to the push for early reopening in some states that had not met the requirements recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for doing so. In many of them, daily case counts are now spiking. And Republicans are less likely than Democrats to don protective masks, which are believed to reduce the spread of the virus. (President Donald Trump famously has refused to wear a mask in public.)

Groups like anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists and immigration opponents have also used the virus to push their own misinformation, per a report from Data & Society, a research institute in New York.

“It’s become a political football now,” said Steven Brill, a co-CEO of NewsGuard. “That tends to get the misinformation and disinformation amplified. People on one side or the other tend to want to amplify what endorses or strengthens their position.”

Misinformation Grows In A Vacuum

Federal health officials from agencies such as the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration usually are tasked with providing the public with understandable, scientifically supported guidance. But the advice from experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has consistently been undermined by Trump, who instead touts unproven treatments and frequently challenges the severity of the virus.

In fact, political figures like Trump have held outsize influence in shaping public understanding. “The news feed abhors a vacuum,” said Jeff Hancock, a professor of communication at Stanford University who has studied the implications of COVID misinformation. “Since the expertise of the CDC and others have been called into question … it exacerbates the problem.”

Experts’ initial confusion about how to respond to a new virus has also allowed for suspicion. When the coronavirus arrived in the United States, the prevailing thought was that asymptomatic patients couldn’t spread it and that people needn’t wear face coverings. Subsequent studies reversed those judgments.

All that helps explain why falsehoods took hold. Researchers from the University of Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism reviewed 225 pieces of online misinformation about COVID-19. Misinformation spread by political figures and celebrities made up only 20% of the sample but accounted for 69% of engagement.

Independent groups, including NewsGuard and Hancock’s Stanford Social Media Lab, have launched projects meant to combat misinformation — teaching older people through peer-to-peer tutoring to navigate digital content or launching websites that point people toward more credible data and analysis. But these efforts, usually difficult, are almost impossible now in the age of social distancing.

The “volume and velocity” of social media spread means claims spread farther, faster, Shah said.

At Summit Hills, the politicization of COVID-19 has “without a doubt” made it harder for Fargis, its executive director, to convince her residents — many of whom would typically look to the federal government for credible information — of the pandemic’s severity.

Some cons deliberately target seniors, offering more than misinformation: Bad actors pretended to have access to their victims’ stimulus checks, asking for bank account and Social Security information. Others sell fake protective equipment.

At Hebrew SeniorLife, a hospital and living center in Massachusetts, which operates rehab centers and senior-living facilities around the Boston area, misinformation and online scams — such as fake fundraisers on Facebook for first responders — are serious concerns, said Rachel Lerner, the organization’s general counsel.

Older Americans experience a “perfect storm,” Hancock said. “They’re more susceptible to the virus. They are targets of misinformation and online scams at a much higher rate than regular folks are.”

When South Carolina began opening up, Fargis decided to see if the numbers of new COVID-19 cases declined significantly before lifting precautions. Now, with the virus in her facility, she has no intention of letting up social distancing rules and other prevention strategies.

And since May, at least one of her residents has since come around to understanding the pandemic’s severity. But another, she said, still emails her arguing that the virus has been overblown or that social distancing does not work and suggesting that unproven medicines — like hydroxychloroquine or beta-glucans — can treat or prevent the illness.

“We’d all be far better off if we kept those nonsensical remarks out of the news,” she said. “The more misinformation we have, the more likely we are going to have lives at stake.”

Conflicting COVID Messages Create Cloud Of Confusion Around Public Health And Prevention published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

[vsplusonline]

FDA approves first treatment for kids with peanut allergy

New Post has been published on https://apzweb.com/fda-approves-first-treatment-for-kids-with-peanut-allergy/

FDA approves first treatment for kids with peanut allergy

WASHINGTON — The first treatment for peanut allergies is about to hit the market, a big step toward better care for all kinds of food allergies — but still a long way from a cure.

Friday’s approval by the Food and Drug Administration promises to bring some relief to families who’ve lived in fear of an accidental bite of peanuts at birthday parties and play dates, school cafeterias and restaurants. Named Palforzia, it was developed by Aimmune Therapeutics.

“It’s been a life-changer,” said Nina Nichols, 18, of Washington, whose first encounter with peanuts as a toddler — a peanut butter cracker shared by a friend — required a race to the emergency room. She entered a Palforzia research study as a teen and calls it “a security blanket.”

The treatment is a specially prepared peanut powder swallowed daily in tiny amounts that are gradually increased over months. It trains children’s and teens’ bodies to better tolerate peanut so that an accidental bite is less likely to cause a serious reaction, or even kill in severe cases.

Palforzia users still must avoid peanuts just like they always have.

The treatment is not for everyone. Palforzia can cause side effects, including occasional severe allergic reactions. The FDA is requiring that doctors and their patients enrol in a special safety program, and patients must take the first dose and each increased dose under supervision in a certified health centre.

And if youngsters stop taking the daily dose, they lose the protection.

Shots have long been used to induce tolerance for allergies to bee stings or pollen. But swallowing an allergen to build tolerance is a new twist – one that scientists call “oral immunotherapy.” And peanuts are just the first food to be tackled. Tests for eggs, milk and tree nuts are underway.

But because of the drawbacks, scientists also are developing next-generation options that work differently. Next up for FDA review: A skin patch for peanut allergy.

“For so long, we had nothing to offer these patients,” said Dr. Pamela Guerrerio of the National Institutes of Health, which funded much of the research that led to food allergy therapies. “We finally have a treatment. That’s a big step.”

Aimmune executives said Friday they hope doctors can begin prescribing the treatment in “a matter of weeks.” They set the treatment’s list price at $890 a month, but how much patients will pay depends on their insurance. Aimmune says it is working with insurance companies for coverage, and will offer a patient co-pay assistance program.

FOOD ALLERGY IS A GROWING PROBLEM

Millions of Americans have food allergies, including about 1 in 13 children, and the numbers have increased in recent years. Peanut allergy is the most common one among children, and among the most dangerous. Accidental exposures are frequent, with about 1 in 4 affected children winding up in the emergency room every year.

What happens: The immune system overreacts to the food by triggering an inflammatory cascade. On average, children can experience hives, wheezing or worse from just a 30th of a single peanut, sometimes even less, said Dr. Hemant Sharma, who leads oral treatment studies at Children’s National Hospital in Washington.

Until now, all doctors could advise was to read food labels and avoid anything that might contain hidden peanuts. Decades ago, attempts at shots were deemed too risky for food allergies. Then, in 2006, researchers at Duke University and the University of Arkansas reported tantalizing signs that swallowed treatments might work instead.

HOW IT WORKS

Doctors prescribe a miniscule Palforzia starting dose. The powder, stored in a capsule, is mixed into any unheated food, such as Nichols’ favourite fruit smoothies. Patients take the first dose in a doctor’s office, in case of a bad allergic reaction. Every few weeks, the dose is increased until after about six months, they’re taking the equivalent of about one peanut.

In a study of nearly 500 children, two-thirds who received Palforzia could eat the equivalent of two peanuts – and some three or four – compared to just 4% of patients given a dummy drug.

A few hundred allergy doctors around the country already offer their own version of the treatment, using store-bought peanut flour – or similar options for other food allergies – to customize doses for patients outside of research studies.

THE WARNINGS

Palforzia users still must carry their rescue medicine, such as EpiPens, to treat severe allergic reactions. Most experience at least mild side effects, such as hives or stomachaches, and about a fifth dropped out of the study, said Dr. Scott Sicherer, a pediatric allergist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.

As for severe reactions, they struck about 9% of patients treated in the Palforzia study, nearly three times the number in the placebo group and prompting debate about the drug’s usefulness.

“There is a trade-off,” Sicherer said. Families and doctors together will have to decide “does it make sense for me or my child?”

OTHER OPTIONS

Other allergy treatments in the pipeline:

— DBV Technologies’ Viaskin is a daily patch that contains small amounts of peanut protein absorbed through the skin, in hopes of fewer side effects.

— Allergen drops under the tongue are in early-stage testing but showed promise in a recent study from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

— Shots to block allergic reactions deliver antibodies that tamp down the inflammatory cascade that follows accidental exposure. A Stanford University pilot study suggested a single shot could block a peanut reaction for two to six weeks.

“Palforzia is a step forward,” said Children’s National’s Sharma. “What all of us hope for that would be truly revolutionary is a treatment that’s curative, that really gets rid of the food allergy permanently.”

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[kansascityhappenings]

Experimental study finds possible treatment to peanut allergies

STANFORD, Calif. — More than 3 million people in the United States are allergic to peanuts and tree nuts. But experimental new research suggests adults might someday be able to take an antibody to keep symptoms at bay for up to six weeks — at least in small doses.

Just one injection of an anti-allergy antibody allowed people with a peanut allergy to safely consume one nut’s worth of peanut protein, according to a study published Thursday in JCI Insight.

Food allergies are tricky — almost 11% of adults in the US have at least one (though almost half of all adult allergy sufferers have more than that). They can develop at any point in a person’s life without any clear cause, and so far, there’s no way to prevent a reaction beyond avoiding the food entirely.

Participants ate the equivalent of one peanut

A team of Stanford University allergy researchers recruited 20 people with non-life-threatening peanut allergies to test the antibody etokimab, thought to block a molecule called interleukin-33, which can trigger an immune response that can lead to an allergic reaction.

Fifteen participants received the antibody, and five others received a placebo injection.

Two weeks later, 11 out of 15 recipients who received the antibody could eat a small amount of peanut protein, about 275 milligrams, the equivalent of one nut.

Only 7 out of 15 participants returned for the check-in six weeks later, but even then, more than half of them could safely consume the same amount of peanut protein.

No members of the placebo group could stomach the protein without an allergic reaction.

To draw any conclusions about what makes the antibody work in certain people, researchers said they’ll need to replicate the results with more participants and determine the ideal timing and dosage of the treatment.

The search for prevention

This treatment won’t allow adults with peanut allergies to safely chow down on a PB&J, but it’s a promising start toward preventative treatment for people with allergies.

The only preventative measure for a peanut allergy reactions is to ditch the nut altogether. It’s possible to treat accidental exposure with antihistamines or, in more severe cases, with an EpiPen shot, which contains epinephrine to reverse allergic symptoms.

An allergic reaction to food might manifest in cramping, diarrhea, tightness of breath, hives and swelling. But people with severe or life-threatening allergies could face anaphylactic shock, which causes impaired breathing, a sudden drop in blood pressure, fainting and dizziness.

Treatment for children could be coming

A peanut allergy treatment for children could be available soon.

In September, the Food and Drug Administration’s Allergenic Products Advisory Committee approved Palforzia, an oral immunotherapy designed to reduce the amount of allergic reactions and their severity. The FDA typically follows the recommendations of its advisory panels. A final decision is expected in 2020.

The drug exposes children to controlled doses of peanut protein until their bodies reach a maintenance level that lowers their sensitivity. The powder can be mixed into foods like applesauce and yogurt once a day.

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2019/11/15/experimental-study-finds-possible-treatment-to-peanut-allergies/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2019/11/15/experimental-study-finds-possible-treatment-to-peanut-allergies/