Re: OT:dangerous food allergies soaring amoung pre-schoolers

[Guest guest]

But that is in Australia.

Do you really think that the results also apply to the US?

[Guest guest]

Jeanine,

> " The most popular explanation - that humans have become too clean for their

own good - could justify environmental allergens like dust, but not food. "

This is hormesis.

The whole concept of hormesis is very destructive to people because it

basically is trying to say that poisons are good for us.

Its ignoring the evidence of people getting MCS and other diseases.

You know that is what these kinds of PR pieces are getting at, don't you?

Elimination of all environmental laws.

That may be great for polluters/poisoners, since its like giving them a

green light to do whatever they want, and IMO, that attitude is kind of what

is killing us.

[Guest guest]

>experts just dont know why.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21920044-5005961,00.html

Jeanine,

The point they are getting at, that people are becoming " too clean for their

own good " , is wrong. That kind of thinking is what is being used to justify

dismantling of environmental laws - their real goal is raising profits and

allowing the use of many more dangerous chemicals.

Here is a good paper responding the the hormesis advocates

*Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 113, Number 10, October

2005<http://www.ehponline.org/cgi-bin/findtoc2.pl?tocinfo=Environmental%20Health\

%20Perspectives@113@10@2005>

*

* a A. Thayer,1 Melnick,1 Kathy Burns,2 Devra ,3 and

Huff

*http://www.ehponline.org/members/2005/7811/7811.html

The authors make the following points in their introduction (the main

content is in the paper - so please follow the link, don't just read the

introduction that I am posting)

Introduction

The concept of hormesis has received considerable attention over the past

several years (Kaiser 2003a, 2003b). A recent literature search in the

PubMed database on the term " hormesis " yielded 215 papers published between

2000 and 2004 compared to 116 published in 1999 and earlier (PubMed 2005).

In several commentaries and reviews, hormesis--defined as low-dose

stimulation, high-dose inhibition--has been used to promote the notion that

low-level exposures to known toxic chemicals could be " beneficial " to human

health (Calabrese and Baldwin 2003c; Renner 2004). For example, it has been

proposed that

if low-dose stimulatory responses were assumed to be beneficial, the

decision maker could view hormesis as adding potential benefit to society

and could estimate an optimized population-based exposure standard.

(Calabrese and Baldwin 2003a, p. 188)

Some proponents of this view claim hormesis is an adaptive, broadly

generalizable phenomenon and argue that in the absence of contradictory

information, the default assumption for risk assessments should be that at

low exposures, toxic chemicals induce stimulatory effects (Calabrese and

Baldwin 2003a). We argue that many examples used to support the widespread

frequency of hormesis are better described by the more general term

" nonmonotonic " dose responses. Nonmonotonic is used to describe

dose-response relationships in which the direction of a response changes

with increasing or decreasing dose. Use of the term hormesis, with the

associated descriptors of low-dose stimulation and high-dose inhibition, can

only be justified if there is an understanding of the biological processes

underpinning that specific dose response. We agree that there is a need to

address nonmonotonic dose-response relationships in the risk assessment

process. However, even if certain low-dose effects were sometimes determined

to be beneficial, this finding should not be used to influence regulatory

decisions to increase environmental exposures to toxic agents, given factors

such as variability in individual susceptibility, variability in individual

exposures, and the public's regular exposure to complex mixtures. Our

commentary focuses on the evaluation of the hormesis hypothesis and

consequences of incorporating low-dose beneficial effects into public health

decisions, with special emphasis on the following issues:

- *The concept of hormesis is based largely on empirical observations

and does not adequately consider underlying mechanism(s) of

action.*Without an understanding of the mechanisms underlying a

hormetic response,

it is not appropriate to conclude that hormesis is a uniformly adaptive

phenomenon.

- *Stimulatory responses are not always beneficial, and some may be

harmful.* There is no scientific support for the assumption that

stimulatory responses such as increased growth, enzyme activity, hormone

concentration, and cell proliferation are beneficial.

- *Health decisions based on beneficial effects must address all the

induced effects by that agent. *Examples cited to support the

incorporation of low-dose beneficial effects into exposure standards ignore

other adverse effects that are induced by different mechanisms and that

occur at similar or lower dose levels.

- *Health decisions based on beneficial effects must address

interindividual differences in exposure and susceptibility, including

genetic, life-stage, and health status factors. *Susceptibilities and

exposure levels vary among people over the course of a lifetime. In many

cases timing of exposure can be more important than dose in determining

health outcomes. Fundamental physiological differences stemming from genetic

heterogeneity and differences in health status will also influence

susceptibility.

- *Health decisions based on beneficial effects must address the fact

that other environmental and workplace exposures may alter the low-dose

response of a single agent.* Exposures in the real world do not occur

to single substances but to mixtures of toxicants that can interact with

each other or affect different steps of multistage disease processes. The

mix of chemicals that individuals are exposed to varies depending on the

nature of their work, indoor home environment, drinking water supply, food

sources, school environment, and where they socialize, in addition to

lifestyle choices such as diet, hobbies, hygiene practices, and other

factors such as the use of prescription and over-the-counter drugs.

Moreover, many of these compounds can affect the same target tissues by

either similar or different mechanisms of action.

( Points are expanded on in the actual paper - available free at *

*http://www.ehponline.org/members/2005/7811/7811.html )

[Guest guest]

I got a clue for them. one example: my worst food " allergy " is corn

corn allergy

http://allergies.about.com/od/foodallergies/a/cornallergy.htm

coesn't leave much to put on a plate does it.

now hummm, exposed to high amounts of toxigenic molds in my second

home which just happen to have the same molds found in corn.

humm, corn fields to the west,25 yards and south,100 yards of this

home. a home that I found out after the fact that had the brick

cracked from the roof down to the foundation, seperated and sunk down

into the ground for a very long time, which was ficed and not

disclosed in the disclosure statement. just one of many things not

disclosed.

intrademal skin and blood testing found these same molds/myco's in my

system.

a farmgirl who has lived by corn and ate corn products her whole life

with no problems at all until her exposure to molds/myco's in her

home.

did I have any food allergies or any allergies of any kind with

exposure in my first home to lower amouts of molds/myco's? my answer

would be no,no reaction to any certain foods. I did however have the

affects of IBS type symptoms where everytime I ate anything my

stomach would roll,growl,become gassy folowed by diarehia in about 10

minute after I ate. and this condiction got slowly worse as did the

mold behund the walls. there was even a few years during exposure in

this home that I wasn't there much and actually had some relief in

all my symptoms but exposure in lower amounts is so sneaky that I

never connected anything to being caused by mt house.

now it's kind of impossible to tottally avoid all foods that have a

corn product involved.

someone give me some corn without mold/myco's in it and I bet I could

prove my point.

which is, it's not the foods that cause a reaction, it's the

molds/myco's in them.

now seams to me that a true food allergy, you'd be born with it.

and what might cause a food allergy at birth could depend on what's

past through placenta. however the minote a baby is born they are

exposed and when you think about it, colic symptoms do sound very

familur to the same symptoms I had in first home to lower exposure to

mold's/myco's.

>

> experts just dont know why.

> http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21920044-

5005961,00.html

>

[Guest guest]

something else they could look into is the quaility of the processed

cardboard crap that's served in school's, in my view it about one cut

away in comparison to the mold infested rice we send to africa. ever

get a good look at those swollen belly's? how many kids there die from

their " allergies " to rice.

>

> experts just dont know why.

> http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21920044-

5005961,00.html

>

[Guest guest]

Live, I agree, they just say what ever sounds good, lets see, one

minute being to clean is bad, the nect minute not being clean enough

is bad. sounds like advoidance of the real cause to me.

--- In , LiveSimply <quackadillian@...>

wrote:

>

> Jeanine,

>

> > " The most popular explanation - that humans have become too clean

for their

> own good - could justify environmental allergens like dust, but not

food. "

>

> This is hormesis.

>

> The whole concept of hormesis is very destructive to people because

it

> basically is trying to say that poisons are good for us.

> Its ignoring the evidence of people getting MCS and other diseases.

>

> You know that is what these kinds of PR pieces are getting at,

don't you?

> Elimination of all environmental laws.

>

> That may be great for polluters/poisoners, since its like giving

them a

> green light to do whatever they want, and IMO, that attitude is

kind of what

> is killing us.

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Well, I did not live in unusually clean conditions. I was living

with visible mold in basement, air that mixed with entire house and

apparently some in attic which could get down into leaky old house.

It's amazing now when I think of it that I was as healthy as I was

for so long there. I developed allergies was all, until 4 years ago

when I got sick. Now only unusually clean conditions alleviates my

suffering, so this does not bare out my experience. Of course

talking about kids but children have weak immune systems and so

believing that you must expose them to more dirt, not sure that is

the right direction. Not giving them too many antibiotics and

vaccines might be better for them, and not medicine at early ages

probably affecting them, or as we all know indoor air quality is

becoming a bigger problem than it used to be since houses used to be

leaky, it didn't matter as much, now tighter, you really are locked

up with the chemicals or mold or whatever shouldn't be there, no

place to get out. So either live in tight house but keep it extra

clean or live in air leaky house but that later is very expensive

with the energy costing so much now. In old days energy didn't cost

that much. Kids used to live around dirtier environments but many

kids died before they were adults too. My great, great grandfather

had something like 17 or 18 kids, almost half of them died, 7-8,

leaving him with small family of 10. Having children die at young

age was not unusual about 100 years ago.

--- In , LiveSimply <quackadillian@...>

wrote:

>

> Jeanine,

>

> > " The most popular explanation - that humans have become too clean

for their

> own good - could justify environmental allergens like dust, but

not food. "

>

> This is hormesis.

>

> The whole concept of hormesis is very destructive to people

because it

> basically is trying to say that poisons are good for us.

> Its ignoring the evidence of people getting MCS and other diseases.

>

> You know that is what these kinds of PR pieces are getting at,

don't you?

> Elimination of all environmental laws.

>

> That may be great for polluters/poisoners, since its like giving

them a

> green light to do whatever they want, and IMO, that attitude is

kind of what

> is killing us.

>

>

>