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Showing posts with label Perfume. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Perfume. Show all posts

Tuesday, 8 February 2011

There Is A Problem


Popping Perfume Allergy into Google Scholar turned up 6420 hits dating back to the 1970’s. Asking only for the last three years gave 864. There was quite a lot of information and from many countries, although it is very hard to find anything from the UK. As we know science in the UK to get grants and keep your lab’s going has to show added value, that is to be commercial. Allergy and the contraction of disease or debility do not do this.

One article quoted was from “Contact Dermatitis, Vol. 63 Issue 2, August 2010, by six authors titled “Fragrance Contact Allergy, A Four Year Retrospective Study. Below is the abstract:

Keywords:

allergic contact dermatitis;
epidemiology;
fragrances;
patch test

Background: Fragrance chemicals are the second most frequent cause of contact allergy. The mandatory labelling of 26 fragrance chemicals when present in cosmetics has facilitated management of patients allergic to fragrances.

Objectives: The study was aimed to define the characteristics of the population allergic to perfumes detected in our hospital district, to determine the usefulness of markers of fragrance allergy in the baseline GEIDAC series, and to describe the contribution made by the fragrance series to the data obtained with the baseline series.

Material and methods: We performed a 4-year retrospective study of patients tested with the Spanish baseline series and/or fragrance series. There are four fragrance markers in the baseline series: fragrance mix I (FM I), Myroxylon pereirae, fragrance mix II (FM II), and hydroxyisohexyl 3-cyclohexene carboxaldehyde.

Results: A total of 1253 patients were patch tested, 117 (9.3%) of whom were positive to a fragrance marker. FM I and M. pereirae detected 92.5% of the cases of fragrance contact allergy. FM II and hydroxyisohexyl 3-cyclohexene carboxaldehyde detected 6 additional cases and provided further information in 8, enabling improved management.

A fragrance series was tested in a selected group of 86 patients and positive results were obtained in 45.3%. Geraniol was the allergen most frequently found in the group of patients tested with the fragrance series.

Conclusions: Classic markers detect the majority of cases of fragrance contact allergy. We recommend incorporating FM II in the Spanish baseline series, as in the European baseline series, and using a specific fragrance series to study patients allergic to a fragrance marker.

Then there was the big one. A 457 page book titled “Occupational And Environmental Lung Disease. Work, Home, Outdoor And Other Exposures”.

There are many contributors and the Editors are Susan Tarlo, Paul Cullinan and Benoit Nemery. It is published by Wiley-Blackwell, August 2010 and the ISBN is 978-0470-51594-5, with a British Library index number. The bad news is that the cost is £99 from your local bookshop and not much less from Amazon

Quite how anyone can deny that there is a problem or why, given the increased power of many products, the UK medical profession can continue to ignore the extent and impact on so many people is a mystery.

Monday, 23 August 2010

My Brain Hurts


Looking around the web for information came across this interesting item. The pictures above give the MRI tests involved. This was in 1993 and I suspect with many modern perfumes the effect would be magnified.

www.ourlittleplace.com is the source.

The pictures above are Before at the top and After below.

Quote:

HARBOR UCLA DIAGNOSTIC IMAGING CENTER
HARBOR UCLA PROFESSIONAL OFFICE BUILDING
21840 SOUTH NORMANDIE AVENUE
TORRANCE, CALIFORNIA 90502
APPT. (213)212-5939 - NUCLEAR MEDICINE DEPT. (213-783-5273

This concerns your patient of the above name (omitted) referred for evaluation of cerebral perfusion. On 12/23/93 regional cerebral blood flow by means of Xe-133 was determined with the Shimadzu Brain Dedicated Unit.

After inhalation of 30mCi of Xe-133, cerebral blood flow was found to fluctuate between 40 ml/min/100g in both dorsal frontal lobes and both temporal lobes with focal hypoperfusion also in both posterior parietal lobes.

Maximum perfusion is observed in the visual cortex at 76 ml/min/100g and the remainder of the gray matter blood flow fluctuates between 40 and 64 ml/min/100g.

Thirty minutes post inhalation of perfume with PetCO2 of 32 vs. 35 ml/min/100g, there is an increase perfusion in the dorsal aspects of the frontal lobes from 40 to 60 ml/min/100g with an increase of perfusion also in the right temporal lobe.

Maximum perfusion is 64 ml/min/100g in the basal ganglia and the remainder of the gray matter blood flow fluctuates between 40 and 64 ml/min/100g.

The study was followed by brain SPECT by means of HMPAO (Ceretec, Amersham) for assessment of regional cerebral perfusion. 60 min. after IV injection of 30 mCi of HMPAO, nine 1.6 cm. thick transaxial slices of the brain are acquired and a 3-dimensional image is reconstructed by back projection with adequate filtering.

Coronal and sagittal frames are displayed, demonstrating bilateral temporal hypoperfusion, bilateral dorsal frontal hypoperfusion with diminution of perfusion in the dorsal cingulate gyrus and marked thinning of cortical perfusion in dorsal aspects of frontal and parietal lobes with a pattern of scalloping.

In conclusion, findings suggest: 1) Diminished cerebral blood flow. 2) Bilateral frontal, temporal and parietal hypoperfusion. 3) Marked scalloping pattern of perfusion in frontal and parietal lobes. 4) Vasculitis vs. exposure to neurotoxic substances.

Unquote.

We know the feeling.