What are Allergies and How Close Are We to a Cure?

line from the article. So it was this prepared statement from the company's website, the EpiPen company website, and it says, we do not know what they planned to do with it, but we can confirm that Bees have a list of everyone who has ever purchased an EpiPen bees heavier information. Now we are very sorry. You know what strange is My dad has a severe allergy to fire ants and we only realized this when he was in his forties. Were in Florida visiting Disney World and Cypress Gardens, and

this is when we were kids. He got bitten and then rushed away. Like my mom said, his face welled up like modern shore and pure luck, which is just such a dated reference, but that's what she always brings up when we talk about this. It is a pretty dated reference, but it was also a pretty funny and diculous scene. But back to your dad, like I assume he was, okay, yeah, I mean my dad being my dad,

he just played it down the whole time. And it actually ended up being a strangely wonderful day for us because while my parents were at the hospital, my aunt and uncle were with us, and we somehow got to pet a baby white tiger like one of the people at Cypress Gardens let us do this. So in my memory of the tiger cup plays a much much larger role in the day than my dad's not being there. You were obviously really concerned about your dad great son, but you know now my dad just carries his EpiPen

with him everywhere, which is a literal lifesaver. Well, I know we both suffer from allergies at least to some degree, and you know what, the pollen count as high as it's been today, felt like a good time to do a show on what allergies actually are and and think about how close we are to finding a cure for different types of allergies, and also, of course answering the question is putting vassoline up your nose a good life hack for stopping pollen? So let's dive in. Hekay their

podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend manga shot Ticketer and on the other side of the soundproof glass keeping his allergies at bay by brushing his teeth,

of all things, that's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. Now, Mango, I'll admit I thought Tristan had lost his mind yet again when he told us that he started treating his allergies with toothpaste, But in doing our reading for this week, it turns out it's a legitimate treatment, and Mango, you can back me up on this, right. Yeah, it's a

real thing. It's called aller dent and it basically works the same way as typical allergy shots, where you, you know, inject a tiny amount of an allergen as a way to get your body used to it, except in this case, the allergen extract is exed into your toothpaste instead of loaded into a needle. And it is just such a

remarkable idea. You know, I have allergies. I often forget to take my medication, but I don't forget to brush my teeth, and it seems like a simple solution plus it feels way less daunting than going in for like an expensive shot every single week. Oh definitely. I mean the only downside right now is that it can be pretty tough to get your hands on the toothpaste at the current moment. And and that's because even though allergy and extracts are FDA approved, it's only approved for shots

right now. But my guess is it won't be too long before the toothpaste will be pretty easy to access. But you know, as we shift from one allergy season to another, we thought it might be a good time to take a closer look at the world of allergies. That's right, So we're gonna explore some unusual ways to keep allergies in check, as well as the science behind what causes them and even the history of why we

get them in the first place. But why don't we start with what allergies actually are since we tend to throw around the term pretty loosely. Like often you'll hear people say they're allergic to something when you know they might have some kind of intolerance but not an actual allergy. Yeah, like somebody might be lactose intolerant, but that's not the same thing as being allergic to milk, or they might have a sensitivity to gluten, but eating bread doesn't, you know,

make them break out in hives or anything. But let's talk about what the actual distinction is and and first of all, like what makes an allergy an allergy? So the term was coined in nine six by pediatrician in Vienna, and he came up with it by joining the words for different and reaction, and the idea was basically, if someone is allergic to pollen or whatever, they're having a different or unusual reaction to something considered harmless. But the

thing that really defines allergies is their underlying cause. And the reason we have such extreme reactions to these otherwise harmless substances is because of a hypersensitive immune system. So rather than targeting genuine threats like a virus, the immune system misidentifies something safe as dangerous and in the process our our body takes these defensive measures to try and expel the irritant as fast as possible. That's why you get like a runny nose or you start sneezing, because

it's trying to get the stuff out. And that's what we associate with allergies. But if you want to get a little more scientific about it, these symptoms are the result of a chemical called histamine, and when allergenic materials bind to antibodies and the blood, the blood responds by releasing tons and tons of histamine. The histamine then attaches

itself to cells in the nose and sinuses. It causes all the blood vessels to expand, and it sends the mucus production into overdrive, which is why we take and histamines. You know, It's obviously one of those terms I think we've always heard and we've known to take these things,

but not really thought about what that actually means. So I get the general sense of what allergies are, but is a peanut allergy the same thing as a pollen allergy, but just like we're reacting to different substances or what is it exactly? Yeah, So it kind of helps to know that most allergies break down into two different groups, and the first is called allergic rhind itis or this

is hay fever. And this category includes what we call seasonal allergies, so things like pollen, mold spores, the stuff that crops up in the spring and summer, and it also includes perennial allergies that bug people all here, like dust mites, cockroaches, and pet dander, all right, So this is what most people think of when they think about allergies, like the kind of thing that makes you sneeze and itch and feel congestion or even be lethargic, I guess exactly.

But things get more serious with the second type of allergy, which of those brought on by food and also like animal venom medications, even contact with materials like latex. And in these cases, the body is still responding to an ireritant by pumping out the histamines, but it's at a completely different pace. It's doing this way way more aggressively, so much so that when someone with an allergy eats shellfish or it gets stung by b they just skip that itchy I phase we know about, and it goes

straight into anaphylaxis. And that's the severe situation where your air ways close up, you swell, your throat and tongue sort of swell as well, and your blood pressure tends to drop. All right. So the process is more or less the same for all kinds of allergies. It's just that some prompt more extreme reactions than others, right, And the thing to remember is, in either case, it isn't the allergyen that's attacking your body. It's actually your immune

system overreacting. And even though we understand how the process works, we don't really know how people develop allergies in the first place. I mean, something is causing our immune system to lose it, but we still aren't sure what that is. Yeah, that's true, But we do have a couple of promising leads on this. I mean, for one thing, we know that our genetics play a factor in whether or not

we develop allergies. Actually, I was looking at this series of twins studies that examine both fraternal and identical twins, and the results were really interesting. So, first you take fraternal twins and when one of them has a peanut allergy, the rate of the other having a peanut allergy as well was actually only about seven per cent. But you look at idea of cool twins who share the same genes, both twins were allergic in sixty percent of cases. So

it's a pretty significant difference, huh. I mean, there's actually another reason to think of genetics as the root of allergies, which is that the tendency to have allergies is actually something we inherit from our parents. So you know, well, that doesn't mean that like, because your mom has a fish allergy, you're definitely gonna have a fish allergy. It just means that, you know, you have a higher chance

of developing an allergy to something. H Well, I mean, there's obviously something there, but genetics aren't the only factor. And who does or doesn't get allergies And another big one,

not surprisingly is the environment. After all, if you aren't exposed to a particular allergy and there's no way to develop an allergy to it, Like you know, take somebody who lives in the desert, I mean, they're not likely to have a pollen allergy since there isn't much plant life and pollen to even be exposed to their Yeah, I mean the environmental component is interesting because it's sort

of works both ways. Like, uh, the flip side is that being exposed to common allergies can also reduce your chances of developing an allergy to them. And the key here is really being exposed an early enough age. Like we've talked about this before, but a few recent studies have shown that children who grew up on a farm are less likely to develop allergies than kids who grew up in cities. Well, and that's because the farm kids were exposed to more allergens early on, right, That's right.

So a few years back, this science Institute in Belgium found that exposure to farm dust actually helps build resistance to dust based allergies. And this works because of a protective protein called A twenty that's produced in the mucous membrane of the lungs. And when kids breathe in farm dust, their lungs produce more A twenty and this reduces their allergic reaction to other kinds of dust. But, like I said, the trick is that this kind of resistance is only

built up while the lungs are still developing. So I mean, if you're like an adult who's allergic to dust bites, it's a little too late to solve that problem by going out and becoming a farmer. Now, man, I guess I'll cross that one off the list. But you know, it's interesting how much of an impact age has on allergies.

Like I was reading how adults tend to have fewer allergies than children do, especially when it comes to food allergies, and it's far fewer allergies actually, But according to the Food Allergy Research and Education Organization, one in thirteen kids in the US has at least one food allergy. But over a quarter of those kids will outgrow the food

allergies before they even reach adulthood. And research shows that the earlier a child has an allergic reaction to food, the more likely they are to outgrow it, which is why, you know, the consensus has actually shifted in recent years about how soon babies should be given allergenic foods, things like eggs or peanuts. And you know, we used to think it was dangerous to feed infants these foods until they were at least a year old. And this, you know,

hasn't been that long ago. I know, even when our oldest child was an infant, they were telling us this. But you know, now a bunch of studies have proven giving babies these foods when they're four to six months old actually reduces the risk of developing allergies by as much as I think, like eight. And the author of the report puts it this way, you have the potential

to stop something in its tracks before it develops. There's a window of time in which the body is more likely to tolerate a food than react to it, and if you can educate the body during that window, you're at a much lower likelihood of developing an allergy to that food, which makes a lot of sense, and it also explains why some people continue to develop allergies well into adulthood. And I guess that's because that's the time

when most of us are making big life changes. You know, you're moving somewhere new, getting a pet, perhaps living on the edge, and trying shellfish for the first time, starting to get wild at that time, you know. But you know, the thing I don't get is why the world's allergies seem to be getting worse. You know, we've been reading a lot about this, and these food allergist at Mount Sina who spent the last couple of decades tracking peanut

allergies among children. And when they started this was back in they found that one in two hundred and fifty American children were allergic to peanuts. Now you fast forward to two thousand ten and that number has jumped to one in seventies, So that rate tripled in just thirteen years. And well, it's true that food allergies are often misdiagnosed. There's been a similariz in peanut allergies in countries like Canada, Australia,

the UK. And that's not even to mention you know, the hay fever rise and asthma's on the rise and these these same regions. So there's definitely something going on. Yeah, some of the specifics might be up for debate still, but there's no question that allergies have become a lot more prevalent in the last thirty years or so. I did some reading on why that might be, and one of the biggest contributing factors seems to be rising global temperatures.

And I didn't want to believe this, but it actually makes sense when it was explained to me. You know, higher temperatures lead to more plant life, which leads to more pollen, and more pollen means more allergic reaction ends. And in fact, a recent study found that the spring pollen count has increased every year since the year two

thousand and listen to these numbers. By the year twenty there could be twenty thousand grains of pollen per cubic meter compared to just eight thousand grains in the year two thousand. Yikes, that's a that's a huge difference. But global warming is only counting for the rhinitis cases, right, not to mention the more serious ones. So what's causing an increase in in things like food allergies or or

even like bea stings. Yeah, so those keys are a little tougher to account for, but the prevailing theory is that they're linked to our modern hygiene practices and the ideas that are modern sterile lifestyles don't provide enough exposure to potential allergens, which in turn causes our immune systems to get board start lashing out at all the harmless

stuff like food or cat dender or whatever else. And while it's likely that there are other factors behind the recent rise of allergies, the hygiene theory would explain why we mostly see this in predominantly wealthy westerns of id s in less developed countries. You know, if your child's immune system is struggling to deal with parasites from contaminated water, then the body isn't wasting time or resources warding off

things like pollen. So if we go by the hygiene theory, you can more or less chalk the whole allergy epidemic up as basically first world problems. All Right, So at this point, researchers have spent decades looking for a cure for allergies, and the best option is still to just treat the symptoms rather than cure the actual cause. But thankfully we've got some pretty great options now, including some of the more outside the box approaches, and we should

talk about those. But before we get to that, let's take a quick break. You're listening to Parts and Genius, and we're talking about the best ways to track and treat your pesky allergies. So well, one of the most effective and more obvious options for treating allergies is also one of the most basic, and that's plain old avoidance. And while that's pretty straightforward when it comes to food or latex allergies, since you know, we generally have some saying what we eat and wear, it's not as easy

to avoid things like pollen. And in those cases you have to be a little more creative and a lot more vigilant. Yeah, when you think about pollen allergies, I mean, you really just want to minimize your exposure as much as you can. For example, pollen counts tend to peak between the hours of five and ten in the morning, so if you can avoid the outdoors during that period, you know, you might spare yourself some of the sneezing and whether obviously plays a big role as well. In

those pollen counts. You've got the warm and windier days being the worst and the cool and rainier days being the best in in terms of the pollen counts. But it doesn't mean you have to stay inside on those nicest days. And one quick tip for braving pollen heavy weather is to dab a little bit of assolene inside your nostrils, and what happens there is that, you know, the pollen and hale just get stuck in there before

it can reach your airways, which is so weird. Like someone actually told me to do that with key, which is uh Indian clarified butter, and they promised it worked, and I refuse to do it because it just sounded unbelievable. And now I basically feel like I've got to try. It's gonna be walking around with some some butter up your nose and it's it's kind of like our our friends Sean in college whose grandmother had the cure for everything was just to like rub some butter on his neck.

So maybe there's something to this and we should just try these things. Well. Another simple move is to check the pollen forecast for your area during allergy season. And some people don't realize this, but there's actually a National Allergy Bureau and it posts the current pollen and mold levels for different regions on its website. Yeah, so the Weather channel does that as well, and Google even pulls up that information automatically, like if you search for pollen

or allergy information in the area. Um, you can also set push notifications on your phone so you will always know when the pollen count starts to climb. I mean, it's pretty amazing. Yeah, and it's definitely handy to have that, But I mean, let's be honest, not all of us have the option of staying inside whenever pollen is is causing big problems, nor you know, do we have the courage to face social situations with vasoline smeared up our noses?

And you know, so in those cases, and allergy sufferer's best friend are the antihistamine medications that we talked about earlier, and you can obviously find those at your local drug store. Not The only problem is knowing which option to go with. Now, the good news is that there really isn't a huge difference between stuff like ben a drill or Zyrtec or clareton. I mean, these are all antihistamines that work by binding

to the histamine receptors in your nose and sinuses. So instead of histamines activating these receptors and making your nose run, the antihistamines muscle them out of the way and actually take their spots, which is interesting. But you know what, what about the nasal sprays, Like, is one more effect

have then the other in terms of pills for sprays? Actually, yeah, I mean those nasal sprays contain corticos steroids that ultimately help control symptoms better than their capsule counterparts, And that's because the sprays don't prevent histamines from binding to their receptors like the pills do. Instead, they actually prevent yourself from reacting to the allergen at all, which you know, it means there's no chance for them to even produce

histamines in the first place. Now, the only downside to these is that these corticosteroids take longer to become effective, so those nasal sprays do work best, but only if you start taking them a couple of weeks before the allergy season actually hits. That way, the steroids will have built up in your system, so they'll have an easier time controlling that immune response when allergens do crop up.

So this is particularly fascinating to me because I am lazy about using the spray, like I take it when I remember, but it's good to know that you sort of need to use it regularly to build up your tolerance. Yeah, and I was exactly the same way. But now a third way to treat allergies is also the closest thing

we have to a cure for them, and that's immunotherapy. Now, the most common examples of this are the allergy shots we mentioned at the top of the show, and these work much like a vaccine would, but you know, a patient is basically injected with trace amounts of whatever they're allergic to, and gradually their body builds a tolerance to the substance until the allergic reaction is either severely reduced or even eliminated altogether. But of course this approach also

has its drawbacks. I mean, for one thing, the shots have to be administered every week, and not only is that time consuming, it can also be pretty expensive, and you know, especially when you consider that this kind of

treatment can go on for five years or even longer. Yeah, I mean that's what makes that toothfaste so exciting, right, I mean, like, I love this idea that you might be able to treat your allergies with tooth taste, and that someday we'll be taking sun screen through pills instead of having to apply it badly, Like, it's amazing all these ways that we're going to be getting medicines. And I've read a little bit about that too, in terms

of the sunscreen and pill form, and it's fascinating. But all right, well let's go back to the toothpaste show just for a second, because I'm still a little bit unclear on how that works, Like how do the allergens even make it into your bloodstream? So I was wondering that too, like it must be less effective than a shot, right, But it turns out that the mouth is actually a perfect place to administer allergy mets, and that's because the mucus membrane in the mouth has such a high immune

response level. It's trying to make sure that we don't do something stupid like drink a bunch of poison, and toothpaste isn't the only way to take advantage of this. So for years Europeans have actually used this under the tongue allergy drop that works the same way. The biggest problem was that the drops can aggravate your throat or stomach if you accidentally swallow them, but thankfully the toothpaste

approach avoids those side effects altogether. Well, I'm definitely pulling for this toothpaste and it just seems like such a hassle free treatment, and much more so than any others we've talked about. But you know, for all the parents listening, there might actually be a fourth treatment option available not to you, but to your kids. And you know, you can think of these as preventive options, are ones that wouldn't require you to just pick up and move to

the farm belt. But you know, for starters. There's a study out of the University of Alberta. So it was a two thousand seventeen report that they put out, and the researchers claim that having a pet in the house could be a way to help prevent not only childhood allergies, but obesity as well. And I feel so guilty now because my kids have been asking for a dog for

such a long time and we've been slow rolling. But they actually, they actually tipped me off and paid me a few bucks to mention this, just to kind of guilt you into the dog. So tell me what, like, why is this the case? Like we're we're so used to hearing about people with pet allergies that it's hard

to imagine how having one could lead to the opposite result. Well, apparently there are two types of bacteria in particular that have been linked to a lower risk of allergies and even obesity and babies, and the studies showed that babies who lived with pets had way more of both types of these Now, incredibly, these positive results held true even in households where pets had passed away before the baby

was born. So you could have just gotten a really old dog, like while Lizzie was pregnant, and maybe that would have solved everything. But that suggests that that health booze from these bacteria might even extend into the womb. So if it really comes down to just two bacteria, Like, could we ever just get some kind of pet and a pill one day? I mean, uh, you know, so you don't have to deal with any of the dog walking,

but you get all the benefits of their dirtiness. I love that this is your solution when you're supposed to be the dog lover of the two of us. I mean, I am I I'd love to have a dog, but you know, we've got family that's allergic. I I do think our kids biggest fear is that, like now we're just going to end up with a fish and call it dog. So so you go, so the profits good

luck to see if that that trick works. Well, here's one we don't want to encourage, but it is interesting to read about, and that's that kids who bite their nails and suck their thumbs actually reduced their risk of

allergies in the future. This is research that comes out of New Zealand and the researchers were looking at this long running study on thumb sucking and nail biding behaviors and more than a thousand kids and so the participants were quizzed on their habits at ages five seven, nine eleven, and then finally at thirteen and at age thirteen they were given their first skin prick test to measure their

immune responses to different allergens. Now, according to the results from this, the kids that didn't engage in thumb sucking or nail biding had a forty nine percent chance of developing allergies. Meanwhile, you look at the kids who either suck their thumbs or bit their nails, they actually only

had a forty risk. And what's more, the kids who did both actually had the lowest allergy risk of all the participants at thirty which is interesting, but it's also a pretty solid defense for the hygiene theory, right, Like, I mean, if there's a benefit to stick in your dirty hands in your mouth, it must have something to do with all those germs helping to strengthen your immune system. Definitely. But again, these aren't exactly behaviors you want your kids

to take up. So who knows how many people will actually reap the benefits from this. But you know, if pet and a pill ever catches on, maybe there's hope for dirty fingernails and a pill too. Who knows, well, I sure hope not, But to me it all sounds like those terrible jelly bean flavors. Oh yeah, definitely good. But you know that there's one way of dealing with allergies that I want to make sure recover. But before

we do that, let's take another quick break. All right, Mango, So what's this last way to avoid allergies that you wanted people to know about. It is super simple. Don't move to McAllen, Texas. Okay, all right, so I don't have to become a farmer, and I shouldn't move to McAllen, Texas. This is a good advice. But all right, so why not McAllen, Texas? So it's just not a great place

if you've got hay fever. And according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America the a f A. McAllen is the number one worst city in America for allergies. Well we can we can forget the McAllen Tourism Bureau advertising on part time genius now at this point, all right, but I'm curious, So what is this based on exactly? Is it just the pollen count? So it's actually this annual ranking that the foundation does and it's based on

a few different factors. So pollen count is one of them, but it's also things like the usage rate of allergy medications, the um number of allergy specialists in the area, and McAllen has showed up near the bottom of the list for a few years now, but in two thousand eighteen they finally scored a perfect hundred on this test. And to put that in perspective, Louisville, Kentucky is in second and they only scored an eight six eight. Holy Cow,

and that does sound pretty bad. I mean, and I know that the South in general can be pretty tough for allergy sufferers. I know moving to Atlanta has been a little bit rough on you with that. But you know, honestly, you should be thankful you're not in the allergy capital of the world, and that is Islamabad, which is the capital of Pakistan. So I'd never heard this, Like, how

bad is it there? It is horrible. I mean, the spring pollen season is so bad that many of the wealthier citizens just go to the countryside for a few months just to avoid it entirely. And then those who stay behind really trying to stay indoors as much as they can. But even that is rough. It was one reporter who was speaking to a woman who actually slept upright in a chair throughout the allergy season because otherwise, she explained, she would just stop being able to breathe.

That is awful. I mean, it does seem like a little backwards though, like, like, how do you wind up with the city that has more of a pollen count than the countryside around it. Well, it actually comes back to the city design, and it's bad design. So you go back to the nineties sixties, Islamabad was going through a period of enormous growth and officials started looking for ways to add stretches of green space throughout the city

and this was really just to beautify the city. But unfortunately, they fell behind on this greenery project and the city remained pretty much treeless for the better part of a decade or so. Then years later, the city planners were trying to make up for this lost time and they were looking to see the entire city with these fast growing paper mulberry trees. So all through the late sixties you'd have helicopters flying over is Lamabads scattering these mulberry seeds.

And to the planners credit, the plan actually did technically work and these trees grew quickly. They made the city look a whole lot prettier. But the trouble was that these paper mulberry trees took a little too well to their new home city, and so throughout the seventies, the trees came to dominate the landscape and really just started crowding out all the native plants that were there pretty

much completely. Yeah. I was gonna say, like, I'm not that familiar with Pakistan, but I don't really know about uh, mulberry trees being that big a part of the landscape. Yeah, that's right, and that they're actually listed as an invasive species in some US states as well. So, honestly, no matter how you slice it, seating a city with these

things was a terrible idea. And of course the residents weren't expecting to deal with the pollen output of tens of thousands of mulberry trees, so you know, city officials effectively doomed a huge chunk of the population to life

with these seasonal allergies. In fact, the Pakistan Medical Research Council later found that about forty five per cent of allergic patients and Islamabad were sensitive to the trees pollen, and just to give you a sense of it, the city's record high pollen count is about four and a half times the records of most of the U. S cities. I mean, that sounds miserable, but you know, one thing I'm really thing is that we've been pretty tough on

allergies today. Like we spent like twenty minutes talking about how terrible they are and how to rearrange your whole life to avoid them. But I came across this weird connection between allergies and parasites that kind of had me questioning whether there might be an upside to allergies. That seems like a weird statement to say with two people who have allergies, but do explain. Yeah, so think about this. Earlier we mentioned that allergic reactions begin with an antibody

overreacting to something harmless. And the antibody that overreacts in the case of most allergy attacks is also the same antibody that defends our bodies from mites and also helmets. Alright, so, just to clarify, helmets are things like flat worms and roundworms and flukes and you know, all kinds of infectious creatures that you definitely don't want in your blood strain. But I think what you're saying is the same antibody that fights allergens also, for some reason fights parasites. Yeah,

so that's what's so strange to me. Like, like, when researchers looked into it, they found that most of proteins and the things that kickoff allergies are also found in the bodies of these parasites. And that means allergies might just you know, be an unfortunate side effect of our immune systems response to parasites because of those shared proteins or bodies might not be able to tell the difference between the harmless dust or pollen and an infectious parasite.

That's interesting, and I guess all told, hay fever isn't a terrible price to pay for the ability to fight off these parasites. But I'm curious though, Like, does that also include foods that people are commonly allergic to? It's a good question. As far as I could tell, it was mostly allergens that were related to hay fever and insects things, But I did read one theory about how

food allergens might tie into all of this. According to an immunobiologist that Yale, it might be that foods of proteins that remind the body not of parasites, but of toxic plants and other harmful substances. Okay, see so so just like with pollen and parasites, our bodies would recognize some foreign proteins and then mistakenly lumps something like peanuts

into that same category. He IS's ay nightshade or something which you know, it's interesting to think about, and it doesn't make me any You're happier to have allergies, but I guess it does less than the annoyance with them a little bit. But I mean, if nothing else, it's nice to know that they serve some sort of purpose. Exactly what do you say? We switched gears and kick off the fact off? All right, let's do it. So this feels hard to believe, but I double checked it.

Apparently Clint Eastwood is allergic to horses. What I just uh, I can't accept that. That's too ridiculous. We should just stop now, all right. Well, here's something interesting. Apparently making out will reduce your allergies. And this research comes from a doctor Kamana, who oversees an allergy clinic in Osaka, and in this study he took sixties subjects with hay fever but who claimed not to kiss their partners on

a regular basis. So he took half of them, put them in a room, piped in romantic music and forced them to play seven minutes in heaven but for thirty minutes. And it had an impact because the allergy sufferers who made out showed a decreased reaction to dust mites and cedar pollen than those who didn't. I love the idea of the study where you're like collecting patients for it or subjects for it, and and you put like, do you have allergies? Check? Do you make out with your

partner on a regular basis? No, that's not really You're in now go and make out. Did you know that magnetic poetry is all thanks to allergies? Fairly? This guy who invented magnetic poetry was a songwriter and he was having writer's block, so he started cutting out lyrics from magazines and just words and started placing them around the table to like figure out new ways to write songs. And his girlfriend, who had allergies at the time, sneezed

and blew everything away. So the next time he attempted, he taped the words to these cut up refrigerator magnets, and that's how this nineties trend was born. That's pretty great. So well, it's no secret that people can be allergic to cats. You know. Bill Clinton, for instance, was allergic to socks. Cats can also be allergic to people. According to that geo, cats and dogs can both react badly to human dander, though the condition is treatable with the

same things that we use, and that's shots and pills. Well, one thing that got some press recently was the lone Star tick, which apparently gets its name because it has a tiny Texas shaped spot of white on its back. I don't know how how you just see a splotch and think, oh, that's Texas time. But the reason that God it's notoriety is that one bite apparently makes people

allergic to meat, and specifically red meat. Apparently there's a sugar molecule and red meat called alpha gl for short, and according to Wired magazine, the allergy is particularly unusual because quote usually a mix of genes and environment nill factor is combined to create allergies, but when it comes to the Lone Star tike. It doesn't matter if you're predisposed or not. Basically anyone can be made allergic by

a bite. Huh. Yeah. I had a cousin who's whose son was dealing with this as well, and it was pretty significant. But there are times when I've wondered whether it was maybe a conspiracy cooked up by the veggie burger manufacturer. So I'm looking into that. I'll let you know when I find out. But all right, well here's a cool and a French biotech company has come up

with a peanut allergy patch. Now it's not a cure, but the idea is that it gives you these micro doses of peanut protein to slowly build your tolerance so that you know, if you accidentally touch a peanut, for example, you'll have a less severe reaction to it. That's really encouraging. So there's actually this new shot that could change our fight with allergies as well. It is developed at Northwestern and at the University of Michigan together, and and I

read about this in Scientific American. But the injection basically sends the allergen into the system in this trojan horse. It's this nanoparticle that envelopes the allergyin and uh it goes to the liver and spleen where that casing dissolves, and when things go okay in the body, the immune system kind of learns from the experience and it realizes the allergy isn't actually harmful. It's amazing because it's actually worked on some nut allergies, and the team is now

experimenting with things like gluten allergies. So these are big life changing things for people. And I guess it might be a little while before they tackle my polar an allergy, my mild polar an allergy. But I do love that they're making these sort of advances, you know, thinking about today between nanotechnology, thirty minute makeout sessions, you know, cramming vassoline up your nostrils. You know, there are a lot of ways of dealing with allergies, some more appealing than others.

I liked a lot of your facts today, me go, but the Clint Eastwood one, I'm still not recovered from that. I feel like you need to take today's fact off trophy. Yeah, me and the allergic course I wrote in on Well, thank you guys are listening today. As always, we love hearing facts from you, so please send those to us. We'd also just love to hear any funny stories you

might have about your allergy experiences. But you can always send those facts and stories to Part Time Genius and How Stuff Works dot com or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter. But thanks so much for listening. Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the important things we couldn't even begin

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you could leave have a good review for us. Did we did? We forget Jason Jason, who