{"id":995,"date":"2020-06-01T15:12:48","date_gmt":"2020-06-01T19:12:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/?p=995"},"modified":"2021-02-03T13:36:58","modified_gmt":"2021-02-03T18:36:58","slug":"dear-dr-k-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/?p=995","title":{"rendered":"Dear Dr. K \u2013"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><em>All three of my children have food allergies.&nbsp; My two daughters have minor symptoms but my son has eosinophilic esophagitis and has had to have his esophagus dilated twice.&nbsp; Why the difference?&nbsp;<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The short and sweet answer is gender.&nbsp; First off, all food allergy is quite common, affecting up to 15% of Americans at some time during their lives.&nbsp; The resultant symptoms can vary from trivial to life threatening anaphylaxis (such as severe peanut allergy).&nbsp; Also, the \u201ctarget organ\u201d of the food allergy can vary from the skin, to the sinuses, to the lungs, to the GI tract.&nbsp; Eosinophil esophagitis (EOE) tends to be one of the more troublesome manifestations.&nbsp; The allergy leads to inflammation in the esophagus causing heart burn, reflux, and sometimes strictures, with resultant sticking of food.&nbsp; If mild the lodged food can be vomited out, but sometimes it has to be removed via endoscopy.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As it turns out, EOE is four times more common in males than in females.&nbsp; It also tends to be more severe in males than in females with more frequent development of strictures.&nbsp; The gender difference turns out to be due to a protective effect of estrogen, specifically 17-Beta-Estradiol.&nbsp; Estrogen can affect physiologic processes beyond reproductive function by its effect on the immune system.&nbsp; Estrogen receptors have been found on T and B lymphocytes, other white blood cells and on natural killer cells, all of which can mediate allergic inflammation.&nbsp; By downregulating the inflammatory response, estrogen protects the esophagus from the severe inflammation that can occur in males.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Researchers at the University of Michigan and the University of Cincinnati have recently found estrogen receptors in esophageal tissue of both sexes.&nbsp; Based on these findings they plan to investigate the plausibility of using a dilute estrogen solution to swallow as part of a healing therapy.&nbsp; They hope<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>that very dilute concentrations would work in males, but not adversely affect their hormonal balance.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>All three of my children have food allergies.&nbsp; My two daughters have minor symptoms but my son has eosinophilic esophagitis and has had to have his esophagus dilated twice.&nbsp; Why the difference?&nbsp; The short and sweet answer is gender.&nbsp; First off, all food allergy is quite common, affecting up to 15% of Americans at some time during their lives.&nbsp; The resultant symptoms can vary from trivial to life threatening anaphylaxis (such as severe peanut allergy).&nbsp; Also, the \u201ctarget organ\u201d of&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/?p=995\"> 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":[421],"class_list":["post-995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-eosinophilic-esophagitis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995","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=995"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":996,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995\/revisions\/996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}