Immune System

Soap, toothpaste and mouthwash may fight germs, but it also could make your child prone to allergies, new research has found. Common antibacterial chemicals in these products may affect development of the immune system making children more likely to develop food and environmental allergies, the research from Johns Hopkins Children's Center found. Researchers analyzed data from a national health survey of 860 children ages 6 to 18. They compared urinary leves of antibacterials  in each child to preservatives found in personal hygiene products.

For school board member Ann M. Ballard, the real value of an educational video called "A is for AIDS" came when her 10-year-old son reacted to the animated program."

FLORENCE, Italy -- The number of crucial immune-system cells in a man with AIDS has doubled in the three months since he received a bone-marrow transplant from his healthy brother, who had been given an experimental AIDS vaccine to boost his immune system, researchers at the U.S. National Institutes of Health said yesterday.Described for the first time at yesterday's session of the Seventh International Conference on AIDS, the procedure was one of several exotic approaches to treatment outlined at a meeting that has seen no announcements of major treatment advances.

Doctors have long said that repeatedly losing and regaining weight won't sculpt the body of your dreams. Now researchers say that so-called yo-yo dieting might even make you sick. A recent study by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington says frequently losing and regaining weight may weaken the immune system, leaving the dieter more susceptible to illness. In a study of overweight but otherwise healthy women, scientists found that people who intentionally lost and regained weight five times or more in the past 20 years had a weakened immune system compared with those who maintained the same weight for five or more years.

Cel-Sci Corp., which is developing treatments for diseases affecting the human immune system, said yesterday that it hopes to begin enrolling patients late this month or early next month for a small-scale human trial to test its drug Multikine on people infected with HIV.Cel-Sci, which has its research offices in Baltimore, said Food and Drug Administration clearance for the trial was received Dec. 26. The trial is to be conducted in West Hollywood, Calif.,...

* Dr. Jonathan Schneck, a professor of pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, is leading a team of researchers who have been awarded a $10.3 million grant - the largest basic immunology grant ever received by Hopkins - from the National Institutes of Health to dissect the human immune system. The researchers aim to learn more about what happens when the immune system goes wrong, and how to suppress undesired immune responses in the cases of rejected tissue or organ transplants or in autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis or lupus.

Q: I recently overheard a person say that children who have just been vaccinated should not be around people with cancer because children breathe out particles of the vaccines after they are injected. Is that true? My mother was treated for cancer about five years ago, and I have small children so I need to know.A: The simple answer to your question is "No, children don't breathe out the particles of vaccines they have been given." But the sense of your question deserves a more complicated answer.

Schistosoma is not a pleasant creature. A parasitic worm about a centimeter long, it begins life by infecting snails and eventually emigrates to whatever body of water its host inhabits. When the creature crosses paths with a human, it grabs hold and burrows under the skin, making its way to the intestines or bladder, where it can live for more than a decade, gorging on blood cells. The worm, which infects 200 million people globally, can cause a variety of problems, from fever to liver damage.

WASHINGTON -- AIDS researchers reported for the first time yesterday that a combination of drugs containing a powerful new protease inhibitor appears to have partially restored the immune system of people with moderately advanced HIV disease.Because their conclusions are based on results of sophisticated tests of immune system cells in the laboratory, however, it remains uncertain whether these "reconstituted" cells actually can protect infected individuals from developing the serious and often life-threatening infections that characterize acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

Scientists at Rockefeller University have prevented diabetes in mice predisposed to develop the autoimmune disorder, a feat that may hold promise for people with Type 1 diabetes. Kristin Tarbell and her colleagues at the New York institution extracted a specific population of immune system cells called dendritic cells from the mice and placed them in a lab dish with a small number of immune regulatory cells, called suppressor T-cells. The dendritic cells have the power to stimulate the regulatory cells to duplicate themselves.