Good news for all
those who live in Japan and suffer from pollen allergies! Scientists have
genetically modified rice in an attempt to desensitize the body to that nasty
Japanese cedar pollen that causes all of the sneezing, mask-wearing and eye-watering
every spring, Rocket news 24 reports.
Just think, eating some of this special rice
everyday could relieve you from all of your hay fever woes!
While surgical masks
are used year-round in Japan, there is a significant increase in masked citizens
every year from February to April when the Japanese cedar trees are scattering
their pollen throughout the country. It’s believed that about one-third of Japanese citizens experience
allergic reactions to the pollen, giving the government cause to deem
it a national problem.
Scientists at Jikei
University School of Medicine in Tokyo have singled-out the agent in the pollen
that causes our immune systems to attack the normally harmless substance. The idea is that if you start taking in the
agent a little bit at a time, your body will stop seeing it as the enemy and
thus not react even when exposed to the substance in higher quantities.
It’s a technique
called allergy immunotherapy. Usually this desensitization process is done
through shots or pills (or by eating lots of strawberries), but because so much
of the Japanese population is affected by hay fever and everyone eats rice,
scientists thought of a more user-friendly method of medicating: modifying rice
to include small amounts of the allergen.
The gene
recombination centre of the Satake Corporation, which handles agriculture
products such as rice and grains, is calling the modified rice ‘Allergy Relief
Rice.’ The rice was tested in early 2014 in a small study of 30 people. Those
who ate the rice every day showed only a slight increase in immune
response or symptoms in the spring, even when the pollen was in full bloom. The
control group, however, saw as much as four times more immune cells in their
blood during allergy season and also experienced the usual symptoms associated
with hay fever.
Researchers at the
National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences (NIAS) are doing further research
to make the ‘Allergy Relief Rice’ even more effective. They are also concerned
with keeping the regular rice and modified rice separate, as there are strict
rules and regulations about rice, but that’s a story for another day.
Of course, there is
still a lot of research to be done, but we could be looking at a hay-fever-free
society in the coming years. And to think that it could all be done just by
eating rice every day, something most Japanese people are happy to do anyway!
Read more HERE.
The Global Miller
This blog is maintained by The Global Miller staff and is supported by the magazine GFMT
which is published by Perendale Publishers Limited.
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