this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2025
128 points (97.8% liked)

News

30823 readers
3059 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

No - this is something completely different, unfortunately. Allergen response is mediated by T-helper type 2 (T~H~2) cells, while autoimmune disorders like diabetes occur through a T-helper type 1 (T~H~1) pathway.

With allergens, the foreign body will bind to antigen receptors on professional antigen presenting cells (usually dendritic cells), which will then present the bound antigen to T~H~2 cells. These will then release a particular type of chemical called cytokines that will signal the B cells to produce a shit load of IgE antibodies tailored for the particular molecular pattern identified. The IgE will bind to the antigen and also to basophils and mast cells, which will secrete a bunch of chemicals, including histamines. This is what causes you to get all itchy. It's also what causes swelling (such as when someone with a peanut allergy feels their throat closing up when they find out their snack had peanuts in it).

With Type 1 Diabetes, T~H~1 cells will recognize patterns on the surface of your islet cells, and will then release a different set of cytokines that will attract cytotoxic T cells (T~C~) to the area. These will bind to the surface of the islet cells, and will release a cocktail of chemicals that will kill the cell.

The mechanism by which allergen immunotherapy works is that it slowly trains your immune system to shift from a T~H~2-dominated response to a T~H~1-dominated response for that particular molecular pattern. This means that your body will treat the foreign substance as more of an invading pathogen (like a bacteria, for example) than an allergen, so there will not be the huge release of IgE antibodies, and consequently, far fewer mast cells and basophils releasing histamines. The precise mechanism of how this works is too complicated for this discussion, but suffice it to say we're dealing with a completely different biological pathway than with self / non-self recognition, like what's going on with autoimmune disorders.