Food allergies are especially common in children, and their symptoms include itching, hives, vomiting, diarrhea, and in the worst case, shock and death.It is estimated that there are about 120 million patients in Japan, and the number is steadily increasing.
Currently, the only definitive diagnosis of food allergies is to have a doctor perform an "oral antigen loading test" to confirm that the patient actually eats the food that is the antigen and the symptoms appear.However, this diagnostic method needs to be carefully performed by a doctor who has both knowledge and experience in a well-equipped hospital, and the time and financial burden on the patient and his / her family is large.Against this background, there has been a need to develop a method that can diagnose food allergies more easily and objectively.
A research group led by Associate Professor Yukihisa Murata and Assistant Professor Shingo Maeda of the Graduate School of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the University of Tokyo, found that in the urine of mice with food allergies, the urine was specific to this disease and proportional to the degree of symptoms. We discovered a molecule (PGDM: prostaglandin D metabolite) that increases the amount of urinary excretion. PGDM was found to be a metabolite of a substance produced by mast cells that causes allergic reactions, and it was also found that this substance is excreted in high concentrations in the urine of patients with food allergies.
By measuring the urinary concentration of this substance, it may be possible to easily diagnose food allergies and evaluate the degree of symptoms.In addition, if it becomes possible to objectively evaluate symptoms using this diagnostic marker, it is expected to be very useful as an index for the development of immunotherapy and therapeutic agents currently being performed.
Paper information:[Scientific Reports] Prostaglandin D2 metabolite in urine is an index of food allergy
