November 3, 2016
From the most common to the rarest, from simple skin reactions to Quince edema, the effects of food allergies are varied and can sometimes be very dangerous. Researchers have therefore been trying for years to cure these allergies, which could greatly improve the lives of some people.
Mice cured of their allergies
Dr. John Gordon’s team from the Canadian University of Saskatchewan has achieved a feat on guinea pig mice and has high hopes of reproducing on humans. According to the research, which was published on the journal Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology in July 2016, the researchers would have succeeded in curing mice of their food allergies.
To do this, they used an experimental technique which consists reduce the immune response related to allergies, this one giving rise to the symptoms which one knows, of which the dangerous anaphylactic shock. The reaction could be reduced by increasing the production of dendritic cells in guinea pigs. These send the following message to the cells of the immune system: reduce or even cancel the intensity of the immune response.
Dendritic cells cultured and reintroduced into the blood
The technique used by the researchers is promising, because it seems easy to reproduce in humans. It could cure allergies, but also various autoimmune diseases such as asthma or multiple sclerosis.e, according to John Gordon. Of course, it will take years for a treatment to emerge … and nothing is less certain.
But the basic idea is simple: the researchers took dendritic cells present in the mice to put them in culture. These cells are found on the skin, the intestines; all parts of the body that are subject to the external environment.
Once recovered, these cells were exposed to a mixture of proteins and an acid bound to vitamin A. As soon as they were reintroduced into the blood of the mice, the allergies targeted, in this case peanut and egg white allergies, were removed.. The immune cells had a reaction identical to those they might have had in non-allergic individuals. Hope is allowed!
Read also: Special diet hypersensitivity
