<story><title>Why do we have allergies?</title><url>http://mosaicscience.com/story/why-do-we-have-allergies</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>LionessLover</author><text>Well... time for anecdotal sample-of-1 &amp;quot;science&amp;quot;:&lt;p&gt;About two decades ago I got a &lt;i&gt;huge&lt;/i&gt; case of almost-asthma pollen allergy out of nowhere, almost overnight. I got the usual treatment (desensitization + meds) and it got somewhat better over the years. Simultaneously I developed other allergies though, for example, suddenly I was &lt;i&gt;very&lt;/i&gt; allergic to cats (I had had cats earlier, so that was new).&lt;p&gt;A few years ago I was diagnosed with a case of chronic heavy-metal poisoning.&lt;p&gt;Now, many treatments with DMPS (the main chelator for mercury) and DMSA later, I have completely lost all allergies (and a long list of other &amp;quot;strange&amp;quot; problems, including a real medical miracle that left the endocrinologist repeating &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m amazed&amp;quot; over and over after checking his ultrasound results &lt;i&gt;twice&lt;/i&gt;, after asking me to lie down again because he did not trust his results).&lt;p&gt;End of anecdote.&lt;p&gt;------------------------------&lt;p&gt;EDIT: As someone who has taken hundreds of hours of anatomy, physiology, org. chem, statistics (focus on public health and use in medicine), neuroscience, I am aware that there is not &amp;quot;one path that explains all&amp;quot;. There are soooooo many pathways, and different things can affect different parts leading to similar results. So I am NOT saying &amp;quot;this is the one and only way to get an allergy&amp;quot;. In fact it is highly unlikely that there is only one possible cause. So if you have found an anecdote that seems to show that something else helped and&amp;#x2F;or caused it than &amp;quot;heavy metals&amp;quot; that&amp;#x27;s just fine and normal - and has nothing to do with &lt;i&gt;my&lt;/i&gt; anecdote. You can get a flesh wound not just by cutting yourself with a kitchen knife, there are endless possibilities.</text></item><item><author>ph0rque</author><text>Here&amp;#x27;s a summary if you&amp;#x27;re in a hurry:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Why do we get allergies? No one has a firm answer, but what is arguably the leading theory suggests that allergies are a misfiring of a defense against parasitic worms. In the industrialized world, where such infections are rare, this system reacts in an exaggerated fashion to harmless targets, making us miserable in the process.&lt;p&gt;Medzhitov thinks that’s wrong. Allergies are not simply a biological blunder. Instead, they’re an essential defense against noxious chemicals–a defence that has served our ancestors for tens of millions of years and continues to do so today.&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>xenophonf</author><text>I vaguely recall reading something on Usenet or something that would have made it onto Slashdot or Plastic in the late 90s&amp;#x2F;early 00s, where someone treated their allergies or asthma or something by deliberately infecting themselves with a parasitic worm---I forget which, maybe hookworm.  They actually went to so far as to cultivate the worm in some medium that they could apply to their stomach using a custom-made patch, started pooping oocytes, and then completed the usual treatment course for whatever it was they infected themselves with.  I can&amp;#x27;t recall if it cleared up the condition from which they were suffering, and obviously, this wasn&amp;#x27;t any kind of controlled trial.  Lord knows that such a study would give an IRB six fits, and rightly so!</text></comment>
<story><title>Why do we have allergies?</title><url>http://mosaicscience.com/story/why-do-we-have-allergies</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>LionessLover</author><text>Well... time for anecdotal sample-of-1 &amp;quot;science&amp;quot;:&lt;p&gt;About two decades ago I got a &lt;i&gt;huge&lt;/i&gt; case of almost-asthma pollen allergy out of nowhere, almost overnight. I got the usual treatment (desensitization + meds) and it got somewhat better over the years. Simultaneously I developed other allergies though, for example, suddenly I was &lt;i&gt;very&lt;/i&gt; allergic to cats (I had had cats earlier, so that was new).&lt;p&gt;A few years ago I was diagnosed with a case of chronic heavy-metal poisoning.&lt;p&gt;Now, many treatments with DMPS (the main chelator for mercury) and DMSA later, I have completely lost all allergies (and a long list of other &amp;quot;strange&amp;quot; problems, including a real medical miracle that left the endocrinologist repeating &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m amazed&amp;quot; over and over after checking his ultrasound results &lt;i&gt;twice&lt;/i&gt;, after asking me to lie down again because he did not trust his results).&lt;p&gt;End of anecdote.&lt;p&gt;------------------------------&lt;p&gt;EDIT: As someone who has taken hundreds of hours of anatomy, physiology, org. chem, statistics (focus on public health and use in medicine), neuroscience, I am aware that there is not &amp;quot;one path that explains all&amp;quot;. There are soooooo many pathways, and different things can affect different parts leading to similar results. So I am NOT saying &amp;quot;this is the one and only way to get an allergy&amp;quot;. In fact it is highly unlikely that there is only one possible cause. So if you have found an anecdote that seems to show that something else helped and&amp;#x2F;or caused it than &amp;quot;heavy metals&amp;quot; that&amp;#x27;s just fine and normal - and has nothing to do with &lt;i&gt;my&lt;/i&gt; anecdote. You can get a flesh wound not just by cutting yourself with a kitchen knife, there are endless possibilities.</text></item><item><author>ph0rque</author><text>Here&amp;#x27;s a summary if you&amp;#x27;re in a hurry:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Why do we get allergies? No one has a firm answer, but what is arguably the leading theory suggests that allergies are a misfiring of a defense against parasitic worms. In the industrialized world, where such infections are rare, this system reacts in an exaggerated fashion to harmless targets, making us miserable in the process.&lt;p&gt;Medzhitov thinks that’s wrong. Allergies are not simply a biological blunder. Instead, they’re an essential defense against noxious chemicals–a defence that has served our ancestors for tens of millions of years and continues to do so today.&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sageikosa</author><text>My teenage daughter developed peanut allergies in her mid teens while traveling with a drum corps one summer.  She had noticed how ill she was feeling and systematically cut out foods until she narrowed the peanut butter sandwiches (she had been an avid peanut butter eater for years before).  When she got back from tour and was tested she was confirmed for strong peanut allergies and had to carry an epi-pen.  However, after about a year she got tested again and now had no reaction.&lt;p&gt;I still attribute this to something else was in her system that triggered reaction in conjunction with the peanut proteins.</text></comment>