Latest news with #zileuton
CBS News
2 days ago
- Health
- CBS News
Northwestern University scientists say asthma drug zileuton could stop life-threatening food allergies
Scientists at Northwestern University have found that a drug used for asthma could stop life-threatening food allergies by inhibiting a reaction in the first place. Researchers found the drug, zileuton, works to prevent food allergies in mice. Now they want to know if millions of humans can also benefit. Evanston native Ilana Golant never knew she had a food allergy until three years ago, when she got an anaphylactic reaction from inhaling sunflower butter. While she developed her allergies later in life, her 9-year-old daughter Emma has a list of food allergies that started at young age. "She developed anaphylactic food allergies at 13 months, and I knew absolutely nothing about food allergies," Golant said. Anaphylactic allergic reactions can be deadly, and require immediate attention. Golant says the worry weights on her daily, so she started the Food Allergy Fund, which gives money to research across the country. "Right now there is no FDA approved disease modifying drug available, period, for any patient," she said. But Northwestern University doctors Stephanie Eisenbarth and Adam Williams are leading a new study thanks to the fund. They found an asthma drug called zileuton could work. It's FDA approved and may be a safe, cheap and accessible option. "I think if I had said to a group of people, experts in food allergy, we want to trial this drug in food allergy, everyone would have said you're kind of crazy what are you doing?" Eisenbarth said. They are now running a new trial with more than 20 people from Chicago that started in June to see if the drug, which has so far worked in mice, will work in humans. "Obviously that has to be an incredibly controlled and safe environment so if someone needs epinephrine or more help it's available right away," she said. Eisenbarth said if zileuton is the future, it would prevent accidental exposures like on airplanes, at restaurants or at parties. It's not meant for everyday use, but Golant said it's also just the beginning. "We are probably going to need more tools in our toolbox because the disease is becoming more common and more prevalent," she said. There is no timeline yet on when we could expect to see zileuton offered to people for allergies. Doctors said researchers at Yale also found that the drug blocked allergies in animals as well.
Gizmodo
3 days ago
- Health
- Gizmodo
This Already-Approved Drug Could Stop Food Allergies' Worst Reactions
Food allergies suck. Beyond placing onerous limits on your diet, their health impacts can totally derail your life, and scientists have been scrambling for years to try and find better, more lasting treatments for these conditions' worst effects. Now, a pair of papers published today in the journal Science unlock crucial new insights into what goes on in the body when anaphylaxis occurs and indicate how an existing medication could one day help prevent these life-threatening allergic reactions. In one paper, a team of scientists reveal evidence in lab mice for a previously unknown pathway in the gut that may be responsible for some food allergy symptoms. And in the second paper, another team demonstrates that an asthma drug called zileuton blocks a crucial aspect of this pathway in mice, seemingly preventing the expected allergic reactions from happening in most cases. The researchers are now launching a clinical trial to test whether zileuton can pull off the same trick in people. 'If so, this could provide a treatment to prevent anaphylaxis,' Adam James Williams and Stephanie Eisenbarth, both immunologists at Northwestern University who are co-authors on the second paper, told Gizmodo in an email. Scientists have been working for years to solve a perplexing mystery: Why do some people who have tested positive for food allergies not become sick when exposed to the trigger food, while others with the same allergy develop anaphylaxis? The researchers describe a gene called DPEP1 that seems to play a surprising role in controlling food-related anaphylaxis in mice: The gene appears to regulate the release of leukotrienes in the gut—these molecules help spark an immune response to an allergen. When we eat food, most of it is broken down into nutrients for the body to use. But some small amount of it is transported through the gut into the blood as whole proteins, and it's these whole proteins that can trigger a reaction in someone with a food allergy. 'We unexpectedly found that leukotrienes in mice control the amount of whole proteins that are transported across the gut, even in a healthy non-allergic state,' the study authors explained. And scientists already knew that leukotrienes play a part in causing asthma attacks, and several asthma treatments, including zileuton, work by blocking these molecules' activity. The researchers then gave a dose of zileuton to mice that were allergic to peanuts and then exposed them to their trigger food. They found that the drug blocked the leukotrienes in the mice's gut from working as usual, thereby decreasing the likelihood of an allergic reaction. All told, 95% of the dosed mice failed to show any sign of anaphylaxis, the researchers reported. The studies are in mice, so how the findings translate to people remains to be seen. The authors also caution that zileuton is not a cure for food allergies. That said, if human trials bear out what was seen in the mice, the drug could be used as a prophylactic that some people could take before a high-risk situation where they're likely to be exposed to such foods. Notably, many people already take zileuton daily for long-term maintenance of their asthma symptoms, suggesting its safety, although it is unclear how its long-term use affects the gut. If the ongoing clinical trial in humans is successful in showing the drug blocks the same pathway as in mice, the researchers plan to directly test the drug's ability to prevent anaphylaxis in people with food allergies. Beyond the clinical applications, the research poses other questions, the researchers said. 'There are a lot of other exciting questions, like whether this pathway is regulated by things in our environment, such as changes in the microbiome induced by diet,' Williams and Eisenbarth said.
