
Eczema, a chronic itchy inflammatory skin disease, affects about 15 percent of U.S. children. It’s a strong risk factor for food allergies — more than half of children with eczema are allergic to one or more foods — and most people with food allergy have eczema. But the connection between the two hasn’t been clear. New research in a mouse model demonstrates, for the first time, that scratching the skin promotes allergic reactions to foods, including anaphylaxis.
The study, led by Raif Geha, MD, and Manuel Leyva-Castillo, PhD, at Boston Children’s Hospital, also teases out the complex web of cellular signals that elicit scratching’s dangerous effects.
…