Archive for the ‘Allergy’ Category

Temporal trends of synthetic musk compounds in mother’s milk and associations with personal use of perfumed products

Friday, February 6th, 2009

Temporal trends of synthetic musk compounds in mother’s milk and associations with personal use of perfumed products

Lignell S, Darnerud PO, Aune M, Cnattingius S, Hajslova J, Setkova L, Glynn A.

National Food Administration, P.O. Box 622, SE-751 26 Uppsala, Sweden.

Environ Sci Technol. 2008 Sep 1;42(17):6743-8.

We analyzed two nitro musks (musk xylene and musk ketone) and five polycyclic musks (HHCB, AHTN, ADBI, ATII, and AHDI) in mother’s milk from primiparae women (N = 101) living in Uppsala County, Sweden, 1996-2003. Possible temporal trends in musk concentrations and associations with lifestyle/medical factors, such as use of perfumed products during pregnancy were studied. HHCB showed the highest median concentration (63.9 ng/g lipid) followed by AHTN (10.4 ng/g) and musk xylene (MX) (9.5 ng/g). Concentrations of the other substances were, in most cases, below the quantification limit (2.0-3.0 ng/g). Women with a high use of perfume during pregnancy had elevated milk concentrations of HHCB, and elevated concentrations of AHTN were observed among women reporting use of perfumed laundry detergent. This strongly suggests that perfumed products are important sources of musk exposure both among th e mothers and the nursed infants. Concentrations of AHTN and MX declined significantly between 1996 and 2003, suggesting a decline in the industrial use of the compounds in consumer products, or alterations in the consumer use pattern of perfumed products. No temporal trend in HHCB concentrations was seen. The lack of toxicity data makes it difficult to generalize about the safety of musk exposure of breast-fed infants.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18800558?dopt=AbstractPlus

PMID: 18800558 [PubMed - in process]

Assessment of the risk of fragrance allergy in the general population: challenges and methodological issues

Friday, February 6th, 2009

Assessment of the risk of fragrance allergy in the general population: challenges and methodological issues

Naldi L.

Centro Studi GISED, USC Dermatologia, Ospedali Riuniti, Bergamo, Italy. luigi.naldi@gised.it

Drug Saf. 2008;31(5):440-3.
There are still unanswered questions about the safety of fragrances. In this conference paper, fragrance allergy will be considered in the context of a wider discussion concerning the prevalence and causes of contact dermatitis. No criteria for a reliable diagnosis of ‘contact dermatitis’ are available. International recommendations and standardization for the patch test method exist; however, the question of whether agents that are positive are causally linked to contact dermatitis remains fraught with uncertainties concerning false-positive rates and clinical relevance. Most of the discussion concerning prevalence or incidence variations of allergic contact dermatitis to fragrances concentrate on the frequency of positive patch tests in clinical series, i.e. ‘floating numerators’. Risk assessment requires that data from different sources are integrated and compared. Therefore, both a ’sentinel surveillance’ syst em and more refined epidemiological studies in well defined populations are needed to reliably assess risks associated with fragrance exposure.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18422388?dopt=AbstractPlus

PMID: 18422388 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Gene Expression Changes Induced by Type IV Allergy-Inducible Chemicals in Dendritic Cells

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009

Gene Expression Changes Induced by Type IV Allergy-Inducible Chemicals in Dendritic Cells

Tarama R, Kato H, Ishikawa Y, Miyaura H, Takeyoshi M, Iwata H.

Department of Veterinary Hygiene, Faculty of Agriculture, Yamaguchi University.

J Vet Med Sci. 2008 Jul;70(7):673-80.

In the present study, the changes of gene expression profile in dendritic cell (DC)-derived DC2.4 cells sensitized with two allergenic chemicals were analyzed by microarray analysis to develop a basis for an in vitro assessment system of type IV allergenic chemicals. Consequently, 26 genes were significantly up-regulated, and 53 were down-regulated in both groups. Interestingly, some of up-regulated genes were associated with the maturation process of DCs. A set of genes was further evaluated by real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction to identify the gene expression changes
specifically induced by type IV allergy-inducible chemicals in DC2.4 cells, and 2 possible candidates, syndecan-1 (Sdc1) and smoothened (SMO) genes were identified. Thus, up-regulation of Sdc1 gene and down-regulation of SMO gene in DC2.4 cells may be diagnostic markers for the screening of type IV-allergenic chemicals.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18685238?dopt=AbstractPlus

PMID: 18685238 [PubMed - in process]

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009

Potential allergy and irritation incidents among health care workers

Alamgir H, Yu S, Chavoshi N, Ngan K.

Occupational Health and Safety Agency for Healthcare, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

AAOHN J. 2008 Jul;56(7):281-8.

This study describes the types, causes, and outcomes of potential irritation and allergy incidents among workers in British Columbia’s health care industry.

Data on occupation-induced allergy and irritation incidents were extracted from a standardized database using the number of productive hours obtained from payroll data as a denominator during a 1-year period from three British Columbia health regions.

Younger workers, female workers, facility support service workers, laboratory assistants and technicians, and maintenance and acute care workers were found to be at higher risk for allergy and irritation incidents.

Major causes of allergy and irritation incidents included chemicals, blood and body fluids, food and objects, communicable diseases, air quality, and latex. A larger proportion of chemically induced
incidents resulted in first aid care only, whereas non-chemical incidents required more emergency room visits.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18669179?dopt=AbstractPlus

PMID: 18669179 [PubMed - in process]