A Vote for Wool

[tyger]

I formerly had a colleague doing asthma research who made a direct correlation between frequency and severity of asthma in children with the microparticles of synthetic rubber that are the result of automotive tire wear. Huge study with multivariable analysis. Since smoking has diminished and coal mining hygiene has been improved this is considered the most common cause (pathologically proven) of black lung disease among city dwellers. Besides causing slow progressive fibrosis of lung lining membranes it can set off significant low level chronic allergic reactions that cause the spastic and inflammatory changes of reactive airways disease (aka asthma). One of the reasons asthmatics are so concerned about pollution alerts. Amazing how we never think about what happens to stuff that we wear out or burn or otherwise discard into our environment, just assuming it disappears miraculaously on its own.

Jeff, kinda interesting. Do you happen to know if the correlation was just an association too strong to ignore, or did it have follow-up causal implications? I wonder because we know that we can find all sorts of strong correlations among events that are related but unexplained.

The establishment media is really something to watch. It clearly tries to gain relevance and importance by keeping one anxious at every tun. Everything in our enviroment is hazardous. Including us. The hazard du jour is part of every special broadcast, and the bigger the hoax the more coverage it gets ("climate change", anybody?). Never mind the real hazard to one's health is driving a car and eating peanut butter.

Keratin is a potent inflammatory agent. At least one resource says that the majority component of 'house dust' is exfoliated skin.

So I wonder: what could be the (short term and long term) effects of breathing particles of hair (and other skin adnexia) on our cardiopulmonary systems? Immune system?

I wonder about this, particularly in the light of the association of filaggrin-asthma and filaggrin-nickel reactivity/dermatitis.

But then again, after having spent 33 years in diagnostics, and research, I have other things that I want to do today.