Beekeeper’s attack on hayfever

Press, 4 July 1985, Page 21

Beekeeper’s attack on hayfever

A British beekeeper believes he has found an easy way of preventing hayfever — simply by eating the wax capping off honeycombs. The wax capping treatment is claimed to be effective by the beekeeper, George Davis, from Malvern, in western England. This may sound like a folk remedy but it seems to work, and there may indeed be some logic behind it, according to the head of the rheumatology and allergy research group of Birmingham University, Dr Denis Stanworth.

Hayfever, and probably diseases like asthma and eczema, are caused by allergies to substances such as pollen in the environment. The first stage is called sensitisation. The body makes a special kind of antibody to the pollen that attaches to cells called mast cells, but while the tail of the antibody attaches to mast cells, the pollensensitive part is left exposed. When more pollen is encouraged, usually by being breathed in, the sensitised mast/ cells are waiting for it. The pc&len binds to the exposed antibody, sending a very

specific signal down the antibody molecule to the mast cell. It causes the mast cell to release a chemical called histamine, and it is this that causes the inflammation and irritation that produces the symptoms of hayfever. One treatment is desensitisation. If the same pollen material is given via a different route — usually a series of rather painful injections — it can cause production of a different sort of antibody that seems to stop/ the allergic response. The injections can be made extra effective by mixing the

pollen with a wax in an emulsion. Dr Stanworth reasons that the beekeeper’s treatment may work in the same way. There is certainly wax present and the honeycomb wax capping almost certainly contains pollen. It is given via a different route to breathing the pollen, though eaten rather than injected. Dr Stanworth and his colleagues are now testing the treatment in detail. If it really does work, it should be a lot more pleasant than frequent injections. * Meanwhile, Dr Stanworth is

probing the chemistry of allergies in far more detail by looking at how the message that switches on histamine secretion from mast cells is carried by the antibody molecules on their surfaces. Already he has found that only a small region of the molecule is involved. If that region is altered in any way, the signal does not get through. The researchers have tried making copies of just that fragment in the hope of designing a drug that will block the action of the antibo-.y dies by replacing them on the mast

cells, but which will not carry the signal. They have had some success but it has proved difficult to get a small section of the molecule to keep the shape it would have in the whole antibody. They are also trying to make new antibodies that will, in turn, bind to the active ends of the antibodies on the mast cells. The hope is that this would stop the pollen or other foreign material from binding there and hence prevent the asthma attack. Copyright — London Press Service.