מתוך medicontext.co.il
WESTPORT, CT (Reuters Health) – The results of a new study provide what researchers say is the first direct evidence that increased histamine release accompanies viral upper respiratory infections. Dr. Deborah A. Gentile and colleagues from Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh report the finding in the October Annals of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology.
"Our team was interested in looking at this because many people self-medicate with older over-the-counter antihistamines when they have a cold," Dr. Gentile told Reuters Health. While histamine is thought to mediate symptoms induced by viral upper respiratory infections, she said, "it has been difficult to find histamine in the nose or blood of patients with colds; this may be due to the fact that it is rapidly broken down."
Dr. Gentile's team detected significant elevations in urinary histamine and its metabolites in a group of healthy adults inoculated intranasally with influenza A infection sufficient to cause illness. The magnitude of the increase in urinary histamine production is similar to that previously seen in most subjects with active allergic diseases.
"These results suggest that histamine may be elevated during the cold and that this may be a target for medications," Dr. Gentile said. This study did not directly address whether histamine is involved in the genesis of cold and flu symptoms, she and her colleagues note in the paper. However, the fact that histamine production peaked on postinoculation days 2 through 5, when cold symptoms are most likely to occur, supports the role of histamine in symptom expression, they write.
Dr. Gentile suggests that future studies "look at the effect of some of the newer prescription antihistamines on cold symptoms and the development of complications such as sinusitis, ear infections, and asthma."
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