Daily Science Dose

Hello, hello! Here are some items I found in the news, things you might be interested in knowing about:

1) Rosacea…they’re figuring it out. It has something to do with naughty inflammatory proteins produced by the body. This would explain why certain antibiotics are helpful in treating rosacea - these certain antibiotics help to reduce inflammation. Now, they don’t know what starts the making of the naughty inflammatory proteins, not yet. Maybe the naughty proteins are always there. Maybe it is triggered by a bacterial infection. I can’t wait ’till we find out!

If you have rosacea or just wanna find out more about it, here’s a helpful site. Rosacea is, like, getting a red face. That is my overly simplified and by no means adequate description.

To bring things back around to lupus, which I seem to like to do these days, the rash from rosacea and the characteristic lupus Malar (butterfly) rash can look quite similar. Here’s a site that helps show the difference between the two. Here’s another.

2) Gosh, everything seems to be about the immune system, doesn’t it? Here’s a new study that says that kids who grow up on a farm are less likely to have problems o’ the bowels. Things like Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis. Those two - they are autoimmune diseases. Where the body attacks/eats itself - hey! Just like in lupus! Lupus is the new Kevin Bacon!

As far as this farm business…there are a few theories (like The Hygiene Hypothesis) as to why farm kids would have lower rates of autoimmune diseases, one of them being that farm kids’ immune systems are exposed to more, like, pathogens and dirty things, and are thus more appropriately calibrated. Fancy suburban kids aren’t exposed to as many dirty, germy things, so maybe their immune systems get bored and turn inward.

Could be, too, that our bodies are used to having to fight off parasites of all sorts, as we have done for bazillions of years. One possibility - maybe those parasites pumped out “calm down, immune system” chemicals, our immune system got used to that and became stronger to try to overcome them. So, without the parasites and those chemicals, our immune system goes on overdrive. O gosh, this goes into a whole big deal, doesn’t it? I’m officially adding it to the to-do list, as I’d like to properly support these claims, or at least back it up with what other people have said.

Simple version: Fancy, clean, mostly worm-free life is maybe not a good thing. Mr. Clean and friends might be to blame for your lupus and/or bowel problems. You shoulda been eating dirt and worms. Shame on you.

The article doesn’t say that. It says that maybe there’s some special something in the farm dirt, maybe something from cow poop, and that we should find out what that is, and then eat it.

Whatever floats your boat!

Moving on.

3) O, how very distressing! Stomach medicines known as histamine-2 receptor antagonists or H2 blockers seem to increase the chances of getting all, like, senile. And stuff. At least in elderly African Americans. While I am not an elderly African American, I do chow down on Pepcid Complete - it’s the only medicine that helps my stomach woes, which are much worse these days thanks to my friend Cymbalta.

Histamine…can you guess where I’m going with this one? Histamine is, like, a thing your body makes when your immune system gets all worked up. Here’s a hypothesis that suggests H2 blockers (that’s what the mind-dulling tummy meds are) might be effective in the fight against autoimmune diseases. You know, diseases like lupus.

Okay, I think I’m done playing Six Degrees of Inflammation for now. Really, doesn’t even look like we need the whole six, not with today’s stories.

I urge you to try this game out at home - over the dinner table, perhaps, or in an internet chat room.

Byebye! If your stomach hurts, I don’t know what to tell you. If you’re an elderly African American, you might wanna think twice before popping a Pepcid Complete. Unless maybe you have an autoimmune condition. In which case you should maybe try to pick up a tapeworm. Or something.

H2 blocker, autoimmune, lupus, rosacea, hygiene hypothesis, six degrees, inflammation, farm