TLPTP Wildlife Edition

Once the leaves fall and they start to rot, via fungi, then any wind picks up the spores to human height. They may carry far before the inwards breath. If that's your personal allergy, particularly triggering asthma, then you're in for a difficult time. So there's an autumn peak as well as a spring one for allergic based asthma in the community ( in my experience ). 

Cheers, Mike.

There is an interesting, and evolving, narrative about 'modern' allergies. In days of yore children - under the age of say five - interacted in a far more direct and constant way with their local environment. During this period there was 'leniency' on behalf of the immune system whereby adaption ( ie. non response ) took place and for later life no allergy would occur, for a given stimulant/antigen. New work DownUnda ( National Health & Medical Research Council on the topic of peanut allergy ) has shown this to be the case, which importantly implies that after five years of age the opportunity to adapt is lost. Those of us who weren't exposed to some antigen X during that window will thus suffer, sometimes fatally, on contact or need de-sensitisation.

Alas this is terrible news for those 'helicopter parents' who hover over every move their children make, 'protecting' them out of love and care certainly*, whom have inadvertently convicted their child to lifelong trouble. Add in the fact that a given person's environment is far more changing than the immune system expects. I don't mean exclusively pollutants here, but the simple fact of personal mobility and/or trade networks. Two hundred years ago the vast majority of the population died less than twenty miles from where they were born, and trade was mostly local too. So then there were far fewer unexpected antigen presentations to the adult immune system ie. it is ill-designed for modernity. Our collective behaviour has outpaced the character of it.

Thankfully there is now a push to get kids off the couch, toss the iPad/X-Box/iPhone/Nintendo/etc, get them outside and playing thus contacting the world outside of our concrete ecosystems, and to present them with as much of a range of foods as is possible. Start early is the motto eg. a pram walk around town for an hour or so several times a week, drop in to a coffee shop to meet other Mum's and their kids. This is why the snotty ferals wind up being the healthiest in the longer term, whereas the helicoptered ones carry the EpiPens.

Cheers, Mike.

* In this instance the treatment of the child equates to treatment of the parents, whom are typically 'well educated and articulate' ( that's doctor-code for : they know better than anyone else on any topic, also known by the title of 'Googlers' ). Boy have I had some interesting clinical conversations on that. Oh, to be a fly on the wall .... well not really, as we'd kill the fly using a pressurised hydrocarbon can, which you can also be allergic to !

( edit ) An antigen is a molecule or segment of a molecule that potentially provokes a response. The key gadget in this process of 'recognition' is the antibody or immunoglobulin, a large protein produced by a certain subset of immune system cells ( B cells ). Most antibodies are shaped like a 'Y' with the tip of each fork configured in shape to be complementary to some particular antigen. So rather like matching jigsaw pieces fitting nicely together, when the 'locking' of antigen X to the antibody for antigen X occurs it changes the shape of the base of the stem of the 'Y', that in turn kicks off a series of chemical events that we label as an immune response. There is an uncountable number of antigens & likewise the shape-complementary forks. Adaptation is probably the result of death of specific B cells that responded during the window. And this is the simple explanation ..... :-)

( edit ) I know what condensed material neutron stars are made of : chocolate fudge brownie. ;-)

Well that depends upon how kind you want to be. :-)

Actually there is a perverse intersection b/w helicopter parents and non-immunisers. They are all caring but mis-directed, a matter of emotion conquering intellect. It is somewhat like Mark Twain's observation that if you don't read a newspaper you are uninformed, whereas if you do then you are misinformed. It may be extremely challenging for some to introspect and challenge their own assumptions. Ego rules, OK ? So it all depends on the parental personal history, typically some muddy happenings in the past eg. did some doctor run over the family dog once upon a time ? Which is why interviews with them are generally heart-sinking. Typically they perceive medical advice as a sly personal insult ie. the parents have attended merely to make sure the doctor does the 'right thing'. Most doctors don't bother to offer advice as it's neither their child nor liability, so take the fee and run for it ( the Life's Too Short Principle ). I can relate to that, as I can only face such scenarios on a good day.

What would be terrific is if some of the helicopters ( or non-immunisers ) fessed up spontaneously & publically. I'm an optimist, but I will still look down in the farmyard to see if any wing stubs are developing on the pigs*.

Cheers, Mike.

* Oh there's one emerging now. Darn ! It is sitting on the pig's <CASH PRIZE AWARDED FOR BEST ANSWER HERE> .... :-))))