Short communicationEmotion with tears decreases allergic responses to latex in atopic eczema patients with latex allergy
Introduction
Allergic responses are enhanced by stress, whereas they are reduced by laughter in atopic eczema patients [1], [2]. On the other hand, patients with breast cancer who habitually suppress anger have higher serum IgA levels [3]. Pleasant feeling induced by watching a comical video enhances free radical-scavenging capacity in the saliva of normal subjects [4]. Deep emotion with tears decreases plasma IL-6 levels and CD4/CD8 ratios of peripheral blood in patients with rheumatoid arthritis [5]. These findings prompted me to study the effect of emotion with tears on allergic responses in patients with atopic eczema (AE).
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Subjects
After obtaining informed written consent, 60 mild AE patients [mean SCORAD index 9 (95% CI 7–11)] (30 women and 30 men; mean, 27 years; range, 21–30 years) with latex allergy were studied [6]. Atopic eczema patients were treated with application of a mixture of pinetar (Yoshida Pharmaceutical, Tokyo, Japan) and zinc oxide ointment, but without oral medication [7]. Atopic eczema patients with latex allergy were recruited by advertisement at our hospital, and all of AE patients were allergic to
Results and discussion
As shown in Table 1, after viewing the weather information video, none of the AE patients was moved to tears. Thus, all of 60 AE patients were classified as “no tears” after viewing the weather information video. Viewing the weather information video had no effect on skin wheal responses induced by latex or histamine, or on latex-induced Ig and cytokine production. In contrast, after viewing Kramer vs. Kramer, 44 AE patients were moved to tears, whereas 16 AE patients were not. To confirm
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