Allergy-Hormone Links Shilpa Bhupatrai Shah
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1ALLERGY-HORMONE LINKS2
3ALLERGY-HORMONE LINKS
Shilpa Bhupatrai Shah Visiting Scientist (Department of Pharmacology and Molecular Biology, Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine, Chicago, USA) Observer (Gray Institute for Radiation Oncology and Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK) Master Educator Fellow in Medical Education (Ross University School of Medicine, Dominica/ NJ, USA) Schooling in Clinical Education (University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK) PhD (Biochemistry: Parental and Pediatric Allergies and Immunology, University of Mumbai, India) Masters (Applied Biology: Respiratory Allergy and Immunology, University of Mumbai, India) Research Associations University of Texas, Austin, USA Roby Institute, Austin, USA CALM International, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Red Cross, Brazil Member The European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Zurich, Switzerland Ex-Executive Immunology Department, Breach Candy Hospital, Mumbai, India Foreword Russell Roby
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Allergy-Hormone Links
First Edition: 2012
9789350250136
Printed at
5Dedicated to
My Parents
Mr Bhupatrai J Shah
Mrs Hiralakshmi B Shah
This book is my tribute to Dr Roby Russell Austin, Texas, USA who introduced me to the concept of hormone allergy
My heartfelt gratitude to Dr Gerhard Meisenberg Ross University, School of Medicine New Jersey, USA/Dominica, WI
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7Foreword
Dr Shilpa Shah is well known in immunology worldwide. She has published widely and presented at many international forums. She studied hormone allergy (progesterone mediated hypersensitivity) with me in 2006. Then till 2008, while being a research consultant to the Integrative Biology Department of the University of Texas, which is headed by Drs Richardson and Richardson, she carried out her self-governing research on hormone allergy in India, which continues till date. She displays her grasp of the field in all of its complexities in this book. She presents a new insight for the hormones and their role in immune mechanisms while linking them to allergies. There are well-documented explanations for the phenomenon of hormone allergy and the hypotheses that might explain them along with suggestions for further research and clinical application of the observations.
Dr Shah demonstrates a remarkable breadth of knowledge in her area of research. She has achieved remarkable clinical results during her study, in the applications of the allergy tests for hormones and subsequent treatment of patients diagnosed to be allergic to hormones. Sublingual testing and treatment may well provide a new method for dealing with some difficult clinical problems, such as premenstrual migraine and asthma. SLIT therapy is rapidly gaining widespread application. It is known to be safe, inexpensive and effective. Extending this concept to testing and treatment for hormone allergy may well provide a significant improvement in associated clinical disorders.
Dr Shah has completed a remarkable work reducing a vastly complex area of research to a concise compendium of the essential information in the form of this eye-opening book Allergy-Hormone Links that can be understood and applied by any clinician. Congratulations!
Dr Russell Roby md jd fclm
American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology
Director of Pan American Allergy Society (2002–2006)
Texas Medical Association, American Pain Society
The Roby Institute Austin, Texas, USA
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9Editorial
In a world where, the “specialist” is often considered the supreme authority, we are constantly being reminded that real understanding and good management of a complex system requires the efforts of dedicated researchers. Dr Shilpa Shah is such a devoted researcher in the field of allergy and immunology. Herein, she presents comprehensive details of the association of allergy, hormone allergy, and hormone balance. Her depth of knowledge, thorough continual research and clinical observation, has prepared her to expand her research and discuss it in depth regarding hormones and allergy, and present her novel and easy-to-implement treatment options. Considering that a likelihood of hormone allergy was introduced in the literature as early as 1921, and then supported in following decades, it is high time that the usefulness of this concept and the practice of appropriate therapies be recognized as this very first medical research book on the Allergy-Hormone Links gets published.
“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”
— Arthur Schopenhauer
This book by Dr Shilpa Shah is designed and organized for the medical professionals to enrich their understanding of hormone allergy from unawareness or opposition to a state of self-evident accepted truth.
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Allergy-Hormone Links—A contribution to medicine: A new picture, a new precious vision and a new procedure—A treatment of causes, not the symptoms.
This medical book is not limiting itself to the undeniable knowledge, which has obtained through the times, but it goes further. It is an opening to an entirely new pedestal in allergy diagnosis and treatment. It advances in the knowledge of allergy, hormones and immunology that have been hitherto ignored and therefore not fought against. In this book Dr Shilpa Shah presents her research in the field of hormonal allergy. It is a lesson of tenacity, perseverance, of life, which is worth to be learnt and appreciated. I join those of like Dr Shah who are always predisposed to new conquests, new assurances and new certainties.
Allergy-Hormone Links—An almost universal female intuition.
This pioneering book by Dr Shilpa Shah is a wonderful example of using a solid scientific approach to explain an almost universal female intuition, of the very real functions of allergy to hormones, and the human body. Even though the importance of balanced hormones has been largely overlooked by traditional medicine until now, we are beginning to see scientists like her, bridging the gap, and positioning the subject in the forefront. How does it work? Why does it happen? How can the problem be solved? And all such questions about allergy and its hormone links are explained in a very easy-to-understand approach. The language is direct, and concisely delivered, in a very easy-to-read format. There will be change in the approach to allergy diagnosis and treatment. Bravo!
11Preface
The global prevalence of allergy and asthma is increasing continuously, with an estimated 20 percent of the world's population currently suffering from IgE-mediated disorders. Asthma is allergic in 70 to 80 percent of children and more than 50 percent of adults. This is associated with a concomitant rise in morbidity and utilization of health care resources. Despite the availability of effective medications, none of the pharmacological interventions known today have been proven to give a complete cure for allergic conditions, especially allergic asthma. Therefore, once a person has developed this disease, treatment will most likely be life-long unless there is spontaneous remission. This has prompted investigators to search for avoidable risk factors, which would help for early intervention and, especially, early prevention.
People with allergies often feel let down by a poorly effective and frequently unsatisfactory therapy. Although all forms of immediate type hypersensitivity (aka allergy) share the same immunological mechanisms, and the symptoms are caused by the release of the same type of mediators, there is still a need to explore other mechanisms in order to have better diagnostic and treatment options. One of these other mechanisms is the recently identified estradiol-receptor-dependent mast cell activation which describes an action of estradiol on mast cells as a hormone, acting through the estradiol receptor (a nuclear transcription factor). There is the possibility that estradiol activates mast cells as an allergen, which would imply that it does not do so by activating the estradiol receptor, but by binding to surface IgE. An individual may be hypersensitive to his own hormones, resulting in a positive reactivity upon skin testing for hormones. Because hormones are internal antigens, these conditions could also be described as “hormone autoimmunity” but due to variations in the levels of hormones in human body with time (just like that with external allergens) and due to appearance and disappearance of symptoms (just like that with allergy) and also due to presence of various classes of hormone specific antibodies including reagin or IgE or hypersensitivity antibodies, these conditions are rightly described as hormone allergies or hormone hypersensitivity reactions. Although clinical observations have pointed to the association of hormone status and allergic reactivity for several decades, general awareness of this fact still remains minimal today.
The involvement of hormones in immune reactions has been acknowledged only in recent years. In allergy, hormone receptors on lymphocytes and other leukocytes can modulate the type of immune reaction and regulate inflammation. Estrogens were revealed to have a receptor-mediated effect on the excitability of mast cells, influencing the threshold at which mediators are released during the effector phase of allergy. An awareness of these findings can have specific implications for the prevention and treatment of allergies. Moreover, adequate physician and patient information about ‘Allergy-Hormone Links’ could enhance their awareness of these ‘within’ body allergens. Based on the understanding of these mechanisms of actions, determining the presence of hormone allergy might lead to effective treatments for many disorders. Specific desensitization with the hormones might represent a novel treatment option.
To address this, general practitioners and others in primary care require clinical knowledge in order to understand allergy individually for each of their patients, as well as diagnostic procedures and facilities so that an effective management plan can be offered from the start. It is vital to recognize the contribution to allergy services made by specialist allergists, general practitioners, respiratory physicians, dermatologists, clinical immunologists, ENT specialists, ophthalmologists and almost all health care personnel. I hope this book will assist them all, in addition to the endocrinologists and gynecologists.
Please email your views about the book to the author on:
Shilpa Bhupatrai Shah
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13Acknowledgments
I wish to acknowledge each and every author whose publications I have referred to while writing this book. I am deeply grateful to Dr Dick Richardson and Dr Patricia Richardson, Department of Integrative Biology, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, USA, for their constant encouragement and loving support to me for doing research work on hormone allergies. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to Madam Dorothy Dreux, Austin, Texas for inspiring me to write this book. I am thankful to Madam Pam Cooksey, Madam Pam Corbin and all my friends at Austin, Texas. My special thanks to Dr Marcello Ferreira and Dr Patricia Schlinkert, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for their care and kindness. I genuinely wish to thank Dr Pramod V Niphadkar, Mumbai, India; for instilling in me a never-dying love for the field of allergy. My courteous regards for Dr B Shyamsunder Raj, Hyderabad, India, Dr Devendra Desai, Dr Mangal Jain, Dr Armaity Contractor, Dr Mrinal Bapat, and Dr Mehroo Panthaki, Mumbai, India; for their academic support. I am thankful to Mr Pruthviraj Laxman Chavan, Mumbai, India, for his blessings and staunch support.
My affectionate thanks to my brother Mr Ajay B Shah, my sister-in-law, Mrs Vijaya A Shah, and my niece Dr Prathna A Shah and Ms Aarshna A Shah.
Thank to God for the universal life force energy flowing through everything, all of us, and this book too!