{"id":1158,"date":"2021-12-08T16:38:25","date_gmt":"2021-12-08T21:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/?p=1158"},"modified":"2021-12-08T16:38:25","modified_gmt":"2021-12-08T21:38:25","slug":"dear-dr-k-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/?p=1158","title":{"rendered":"Dear Dr. K;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>My sister is on a JACK medicine for her ulcerative colitis but she said it may soon be used for allergies.&nbsp; Is that true?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, kind of.&nbsp; First of all, not to be too picky but there is a whole family of JAK drugs and the \u201cJAK\u201d refers to Janus kinase which is a pathway that transmits signals across cell membranes.&nbsp; The JAK system plays important roles in embryonic development, stem cell development, blood cell production and inflammation signaling.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This last role is why it can be targeted to prevent inflammation, because left to its own devices it transduces signals from cytokines (chemical messengers) into cells leading to inflammation.&nbsp; I\u2019m pretty sure your sister is taking tofacitinib which is also being used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and most recently Covid-19.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You might have heard about a phenomenon in severely ill Covid patients called cytokine storm.&nbsp; Basically, these particular individuals have an unbridled inflammatory response to Covid which causes the severe lung inflammation.&nbsp; Tofacitinib has saved the lives of thousands of ICU hospitalized Covid patients by abrogating this \u201cover the top\u201d inflammation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But to get to the point of your question, the JAK system has great potential to help a myriad of allergic conditions.&nbsp; Just as Covid related cytokine storm, and autoimmune diseases such as your sister\u2019s rheumatoid arthritis are due to failure to properly regulate the immune system, so too is allergy.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The currently available JAK drugs are taken orally and therefore work systemically.&nbsp; Because of their systemic nature there is some potential for untoward side effects such as immune suppression.&nbsp; The research on JAK\u2019s for<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>allergy has focused on site delivery either by inhalation to treat asthma or by skin application to treat eczema.&nbsp; Research on both of these applications is very promising.&nbsp; In fact, the FDA just approved the first topical JAK for treating eczema: Opzelura (ruxolitinib cream).&nbsp; For both asthma and eczema, the JAK drugs will provide an alternative to steroids to treat the inflammation that causes both conditions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My sister is on a JACK medicine for her ulcerative colitis but she said it may soon be used for allergies.&nbsp; Is that true? Well, kind of.&nbsp; First of all, not to be too picky but there is a whole family of JAK drugs and the \u201cJAK\u201d refers to Janus kinase which is a pathway that transmits signals across cell membranes.&nbsp; The JAK system plays important roles in embryonic development, stem cell development, blood cell production and inflammation signaling.&nbsp; This&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/?p=1158\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[401,560],"class_list":["post-1158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-covid-19","tag-jak"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1158"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1159,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158\/revisions\/1159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}