Auto-Allergy

Most readers got a big ha-ha out of the cartoon in which the doctor tells the little man he seems to be allergic to himself. Now, it appears, the joke is no laughing matter. Many unfortunates actually are allergic to themselves: i.e., to the chemicals such as sex hormones, insulin, adrenalin produced by their own bodies.

In the current Journal of Allergy, Drs. Bernhard Zondek (famed co-discoverer of a standard test for pregnancy) and Yehuda M. Bromberg of Jerusalem's Hadassah University Hospital tell how they made hormone skin tests on 165 women, about half of whom were suspected of hormone allergy. Sure enough, 68 of them proved auto-allergic. Encouragingly, however, the doctors found that graduated shots of the offending hormones would cure 50% of the auto-allergies and markedly improve another 29%.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.