SYSK Selects: Gesundheit! How Allergies Work

house stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charlestovi, Chuck Bryant looking particularly smart to day's glasses. Check someone with the beard, by the way, that's right. Kind of bibles of mine after making video content, having an entire season of a television show that people still say, wait, I thought it was

the other one. Yeah, it's not like this is you know, the radio days of nineteen forties when you really didn't know what people look like like worst and Orsten Wells is a baby face I used to bearded up back in the day. Yeah, I think of him as like the in Citizen Kane early on and he was clean shaving baby face, right, yes, so what are you saying? How's this like, Citizen Kane? It's not okay, good one, thanks man, Um, how you doing. I'm good, A little

under the weather, but not because of allergies. You're sure. Well it's funny you said that because Emily was like, you know, you may have some allergies, but sometimes you think you're getting sick and it could just be allergies. It definitely could be. Yeah, well she's super allergic to all sorts of stuff. Yeah, just really bad allergies, not like food allergies, season yes, seasonal pollen, dust fight, brag weed and all that stuff. Yeah. Venom. Yeah, and I

grew up. Yeah, I grew up with allergies. I think I've mentioned this before, um, like asthma and all kinds of stuff, And I just grew out of it because that faith healer. Yeah, I guess so, right, I got bit by that rattlesnake and everything was all good. Yeah. Venom it works both ways, right, Actually it does because there's anti venom. Remember didn't we do one on what's the most venomous or poisonous all in the world? That was a good one. It was the country of Australia.

It was it's a dangerous place. Well, Chuck, I specifically remember one time when we were at work and you were attacked by a bee and I had to deliver an een shot to your thigh. Remember the whole gang was there, the whole gang. They carted you off in an ambulance. It was really kind of traumatic for us. But I got my magnum p I played that day, so it kind of everything balanced out. Every all's well, that ends well. But what's mind boggling is that you

don't even have an allergy two bees. So like what happened there, Well, that was just TV. It was a TV show. Yeah, let me troubled distinguishing reality from fiction these days, other people are too. Had you um had to be allergy? Though, after reading this article you would know what was going on. Yeah, And I think we even covered that in the B podcast, didn't We We covered like anaphylactic shock a little bit. But this is

like what we're about to talking about is allergies. The cellular basis of what constitutes an allergy, how they're created, where they come from. It's pretty cool. Yeah, I tried to stump Emily this morning because I thought I was being a smart guy. And even though she has bad allergies, also, I could bet you don't even know what they really are. Oh yeah, she's like, um, yeah, it's an overreaction from your immune system to proceed invader, almost exactly like that,

And now I felt really stupid. It's like, oh to perceived invader. She loved it. She's like called me smart guy and like followed me around the house, brow beating me. Yeah. Um, so she's absolutely right, though, I mean, an allergy is basically a case of mistaken identity as far as your immune system is concerned. You know, um, you've got all sorts of foreign invaders coming at you all the time, and we have an immune system to handle these things.

But every once in a while, and it depends, they think probably that you are um, genetically unfulfilled if you have allergies. Oh it's not a complete genetic code or something. Yeah, Like you have a little bit of information missing. Your immune system has a little bit of information missing. And so for example that in the article they used the example of um, like, uh, shrimp, You can eat shrimp and there's maybe a protein attached to it that your body is like did he eat this or where did

this come from? Or he being attacked by shrimp exactly, And they think probably that all allergies are triggered by proteins. But it's a case of mistaken identity. So let's talk about this. Let's let's get into the immune system a little bit. How how the immune system handles foreign invaders perceived or otherwise. That's right. Uh, well, I guess we could start with something called lymphocyte. And um, you've probably heard of things like T cells and B cells. Those

are lymphocytes. Yeah, T cells are if that's how they determine whether you have HIV. I believe like if your T cell count is low because HIV is a it's a an Immunoh. So they are both white blood cells and they are really important to the immune system. Um, but they make mistakes sometimes, right, And I love the way this Who wrote this, by the way, Steve Beach, freelancer,

never heard of him. I thought he did a great job though, because he likened the being T cells to custom agents systoms agents just like they go anywhere they want in your body and they investigate cells and basically are like, let me see your papers where you going. It's like, what's the purpose of your visit? It's like arizona in your body. Yeah. Yeah, Like they show up anywhere they can, Like you said, they can make it anywhere. They can pass through membranes and blood vessels and just

pop up and they go, who are you lymph notes? Yeah, very important for them to visit the lymph notes. It is very important because that's where they go back and start producing antibodies. Right, that's right. When they see something and they discover a cell and they say, hold on a minute, you'll pap us are not in order, then there's trouble and they launched. Basically they start the attack

at that point. And we haven't quite figured this out. Um. Basically, what happens when a B cell, especially encounters in a foreign body, which is called an antigen because they generate antibodies, they trigger the generation of antibodies in your body. In

your body, so that's where antigen comes from. Um. The B cell basically takes down all of its data and then goes back up into the lymph nodes, and that that B cell, that white blood cell, turns into a plasma cell and starts churning out antibodies that are specifically tailored to counteract that antigen that for an invader that it encountered. Right, and our body um our bodies have five types of antibodies, and they're called immunoglobulens. I love that word. It's tough to get out, but it's a

great word. Yeah. Uh, we'll call them I G s and UM. I G E is the one that's responsible for allergic reactions. Yeah. And the reason that that one is responsible for allergic reactions as we understand them, is because I G ease immunoglobulin ease. Yeah. Right. Um. They attached to mast cells and uh baso fills and those are two different types of UM cells. A mass cell is found in a connective tissue and basi phil is um a type of white blood cell. But they share

the commonality that both of them contain histamine. And when they are hijacked by an I G e UM antibody, uh, they basically become little ticking time bombs. So, so think about this when you're when you come in contact with an anogen and your body goes off, that white blood cell goes off and starts producing antibodies. That first moment of contact creates what's called the sensitizing exposure, right, Yeah,

and it's it's basically a mistake. It is in the case of allergies, yeah, because I mean, like, there's nothing inherently dangerous about ragweed pollen, and your body can handle b venom and shellfish, right. But it's there's some protein in each of those that certain people's bodies if they don't have the genetic code for their white blood cells to say, oh you pass, You're fine, then there's that

case of mistaken identity. Like you said, So, once you have that sensitizing exposure, the first time your body comes across this protein and there's that mistaken identity, it starts producing antibodies, and those antibodies attached in the case of I G S to um baza fills and mass cells, and they start circulating throughout your body just waiting for the next time it encounters that anigin that it's been

specifically designed to interact with. That's right, And what happens then they say, hey, I know you, you're not supposed to be here. I'm going to release something called histamine, which is can be a great thing in your body because that's what's gonna you know. That's basically your arsenal fighting this this invader. But it can be a bad thing too, um if too much of it is released, as as we will see in a little while. Yeah.

So when in uh, when an and body and I g E connects to an antigen um, it's already connected to a mass seller basophil. Remember those things are loaded with with histamine, so they're basically taking them along for the party, right. Yeah, So when it connects it, it sends a signal to something called um compliment proteins I believe, and those compliment proteins come along and say, oh cool,

a chain reaction we can start to fulfill. And they start locking on and locking on and locking on, and once a certain amount of them have kind of locked together along into this um antibody anergin mast cell, basophil joint um, the mass cell or the basi phil goes bluey and all of a sudden you have histamine floating through your body. That's right. It basically destroys those original cells such that the histamine is just released and unduly released.

And this is called the allergic cascade. This is what we think of so you you may have come in contact with shrimp and then ten days later you ate shrimp. I I know I had an an allergic reaction shrimp. Um. Oh yeah, okay, yeah, spoiler all right, UM. And it takes maybe seven to ten days for that sensitizing exposure. From that time to the next time, you could have the allergic cascade, because that's how long it takes for

your body produced the antibodies. But when that that allergic cascade is kicked off and the histamine is released, that's when the symptoms that we associate with UM the type of of allergy come about. So like if you inhale it um, your mucous membranes are gonna flare up. You might get hives. Hives which are basically like histamines caused your blood vessels in the area to leak, which makes it swell. That's a hive. Uh sneezing, wheezing all that. I could wheeze right now if you want, if you

let me, but it would be really gross. Let's here, I don't want to um because people would say, oh, man, chuck, get to a sanitarium. But I'm sick. I don't have allergies. Sanitary. Yeah, remember that. Yeah, like the Kellogg's thing. Yeah, sure, battle creek, Uh, nausea, diarrhea, little vomiting. Maybe that's like you know, I think that's the scale from least reaction to most. If you're vomiting, then you've ingested something that you're really allergic to. Yeah.

You can become swollen usually like the part of your body or the type of reaction you have, right like where if you if your skin swells, if your arms swells, you probably didn't inhale all learn just that it probably came in contact with your skin, like a break in your skin. Yeah. It depends on how you ingest it and how your body reacts to it because it's different for everyone, and severity obviously. But speaking of severity, it can get really bad, which you talked about in the

B episode. Um, if this cascade, of this allergic cascade UH is allowed to continue and you have enough of a reaction to it, you have enough antibodies attached to mass cells and bass it fills that a ton of histamine is released, you can be in big trouble. You can go into what's called anaphylactic shock. Yeah, and UH, proceeding that you can have anaphylaxis, which is not quite as bad. It's a it's a bad reaction, but it's

not the full blown shock. If you're in full blown shock mode, then you could die easily and within minutes. Even if you have let's say, like a peanut allergy and you accidentally eat those peanuts. Unless you get that injection of epinephrin that's gonna open those airways and restrict the blood vessels back to their normal levels, then you could be a goner, like really soon, right, And that's called scary. That's called a systemic reaction where your whole

system is involved in this. And um, you're if you're Since histamine dilates the blood vessels, your blood pressure can drop. Um. It also causes swelling. Uh so like if your airways swollen, that tends to close it off, which means it's tough for you to breathe. Yeah, you could starve your brain and kidneys of oxygen. Um and you know, oregon failure can happen. And I think what they say, several hundred

people die in the United States alone each year. Yeah, because we didn't cover this in the UM in the TV episode about bees where I delivered that from Penn and saved your life, if you'll remember. I do remember. Um. But apparently the effects of the epic pen last ten to twenty minutes. Yeah, I didn't realize it was that short. Yeah, so we should have had you outfitted with like a whole belt of those things. I thought you were just good to go once you have the EpiPen shot. Apparently

not so. I think it's just like, hey, let's stave off death until we can get you to a hospital. I think so too. But you have to do it early enough so that it can it can have the effect of counteracting that's allergic reaction. Uh. And you you, if it's longer than ten to twenty minutes to get to the hospital, you should probably have more in one pen. But even if you've survived, your brain and your kidneys being starved of oxygen, you can suffer long term damage

from going into anaphylactic shock. Yeah. I would be a freak if I had this possibility existing in my life. I would have an EpiPen in my car and my you know, in each room of my house. I would not take any chances. And what about like a peanut allergy too, It's gotta be so easy to come in

contact with that. Yeah. Well, and we've mentioned that time on the plane when they said you can't even open peanuts on this flight, and we had people right in they were like, yeah, dude, that's a that could seriously happen, right, And I understand that. What's crazy to me is like, if you fly Delta, they'll give you a peanuts all day long. Well not if someone says that they're allergic. That's the point. Yeah, I guess. So this is a delta for And they said, I'm sorry, everyone, no peanuts

today because what's the delt. I thought was towel E is allergic peanuts. Yeah, Everybody's like, oh God, I want my peanuts. I hate Yeah, I guess I'll just eat Press pretzels and Biscott cookies. Dirt dirt. Okay, So all right, let's say you have allergies, or let's say you think you have allergies and you want to go in and find out for sure. There are a couple of ways that they can that they can test this out, honey, Yeah, and and run into a beehive. Uh no, you would

do what's called the scratch test. And I've never had one of these. Emily's had one, and she also does immunotherapy, which we'll get to. But they apply a diluted extract of you know, different kinds of allergens to like your back or your arm, and then they scratch you with a needle and they see what happens, and if it becomes swollen and red, then they say, you know, I think you're allergic to ragweed because we just put some on your body and scratched it. They can also do

blood tests and search for specific antigens. Yeah, that's better for kids, I think, yeah, because it can cause a sensitizing event in a kid if you expose them to it. Because everybody knows their genes are just stupid. Yeah, they're like a very um susceptible to influence. I guess, which is weird to me. So here's the thing. Does that mean that it's impossible to die from your first beasting?

That at what is possible or impossible? Because if there has to be a sensitizing event, how would you come in contact with the venom other than to be stung? How would you become sensitized? I was looking all over the internet, sor and I think One of the things that kind of found well doing additional research for this episode is that we have a pretty good idea of how allergies work, but it's definitely not complete yet. Yeah, I mean when you're on the cellular level, I'm sure

there are still some mysteries to be had. But they say, it's like, because one of your questions was, how do they identify that for an invader? And I was happy to just say they identify for an invader, right, and how do they how do they take down its information and then go back to the to the lymph node and start producing an animboo. They had a pin and pad and they had a little golf cart. They did a police sketch. Yeah, that's the way I set um.

So you've got scratched therapy, blood tests, they both work, they're okay. Um. And then if you if they say you know what you are you're allergic to somethings Y and Z. There's basically three things they recommend. The first is to avoid that thing whatever it is, sure and if that's shell fish or peanuts, then you're pretty good shape because that's pretty easy to avoid in most cases. You would think, have you ever had a shrimp allergy.

Shrimp is pretty delicious, No, but it's it's easier to avoid than pollen, let's say, because pollen's everywhere, especially here in the South. So if you're allergic to pollen, there's no avoiding it. I mean there's cars that all the car is in the spring in the South, or yellow. Every car's painting the streets run yellow. Literally. Yeah. Yeah, Um, so you would take medication accorded coasteroid. You might walk around with an F and f rompen depending on what

you are allergic to. Um, you know that kind of thing. And then the third one is what you said Emily was doing and what I've done before too, which is immunotherapy done this I think? So, I mean I undertook the process of immunotherapy by myself and it seems to have worked. I was about to say, did a doctor give you injections at point in your life? Tell me

about Emily's experience. Well, she she does the standard immunotherapy where she goes into to get her allergy shots once a month, I think, And um, they start you out on a on a low uh dose that's like a basically a weak delusion of these antigens. And they they injected in her body and just build that up over time to increase her her immune response I guess right. And then over time, so this is what they think

happens over time. Either the body possibly gets it's genetic information filled in enough so that it's it's like, oh, was my face red because this wasn't actually a foreign invader, It's just a shrimp protein UM. And or they believe that another UH and a body I g G, which acts as kind of like a blocking antibody that prevents an allergic reaction, UM starts to build up as a as a result of immunotherapy. We should say, I think

immunotherapy is still fairly controversial, is it. I believe so, because it's introducing, you know, a potentially dangerous thing into a human being. And it's not like if you ask somebody if honey as a good immunotherapy, Logically it should

make sense. If you use local honey, very very local honey, it's going to contain some of the same pollen um that you're supposed to that you're allergic to in it, and so when you eat it, when you ingested, it's like taking that low level and it should be doing the same thing as that, you know, taking injections from the doctor, but it's more delicious and it takes a

long time. At we's been at it for she was at it for a couple of years without virtually no uh success, right, so it takes Has it been helping though at all? I think so, because she still has bad allergies, but they used to be way worse. But she's been on these shots now for like, I mean, she did it when she was a kid and then she's been on it again for like five years. Probably it's been a while. So I've I've had one serious. It wasn't even serious, but it was my distinct allergic reaction.

And it was shrimp once and I ate it and you mean, just like why are you red? And like what are those red dots all over you? What's going on? And uh, I figured out I was. I was having an allergic reaction to shrimp. So I've never had before, right, and I love shrimp. And I tried it the next day, tried a little by a shrimp kind of had a similar reaction. So I was like, something's going on here. So I decided that I was going to get myself

over my shrimp allergy. Right. Have you ever had shrimp chips? Uh? Yes, They're delicious. They're delicious. They're like little kind of potato chip French fries with their shrimp flavor because they have shrimp dust on them, like sexual powdered shrimp shrimp dust. So I started like very eating little amounts of shrimp chip, and then over the over time I would eat more whole bags of them at a time, you know. Um, and then finally I get to the point where I

could eat shrimping it. I don't know if that really cured me or if that was just a fluke, like maybe that shrimp was just a local type of shrimp and Carolinas or something like. But um, that's that's my immunotherapy story. Well, you can eat shrimp now like Gangbusters, So yeah, and I do, do you really? Yeah, whenever I can. I like shrimp. I'm trying to make up for lost time because I spent like three years, two years without eating shrimp. So be where prawns and Trump

of the world, gosh, number eat you live? Will you know? Okay that's gross. No, it's not people do that. Um, I guess that's it. Yeah, that is allergies. And I bet the reason I quizzed Emily is because I think a lot of people who have allergies don't even understand the core concepts. And uh yeah, hopefully now you do that. It's a case of mistaken identity. It's so awesome. Yeah, and your your DNA is dumb or incomplete. Okay, UM, if you like this, you should go check out how

allergies work. You can type them in the search bar how stuff works dot com. You can also look up another article I wrote about using honey for immunotherapy. That's pretty interesting. Um. Probably like honey allergies maybe would be too good words of putting the search bar for that one. Um, and I said the search bar twice, which means we're

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Freddie pretty turner in Oxford Englin. Cool Um. Well, if you have a great story associated with something we've talked about, as always, we want to hear it, You can tweak to us at s Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com and check out our website Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how Stuff Works dot com. M