There are days when I feel so lucky to be literate in science and have well informed friends. In the last week I have received several excellent suggestions for information to hunt down, psychological approaches to it, technological, and commercial views of its value. All this in tandem with pleasant, or at least engaging coversation.
First came the good news that there is a known cause of the less than delightful 'atopic' symptoms I experience (eczema, asthma, hay-fever), a mutation for a skin sealing protein called filaggrin - try saying that ten times really really fast. Anyway, odd name aside, mutations in a gene on chromosome 1 cause the protein not to form and the skin, lining of the nose and lungs are not the effective protective barrier most people take for granted. Skin contact likely cuases sensitisation that then leads on to the asthma that is so commonly found to follow eczema. Luckily I don't experience these symptoms as badly as some I have read about! The good news came from a friend, artist who keeps up with the latest in the push into post-humanity :-)
After hunting down the papers in Nature Genetics, I visited a friend who lives with fibromyalgia who was good enough to remind me that while finding one cause is a good step, there is likely more to it, and treatments won't be coming all that fast.
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