Agonists and Allergies

My mast cells are leaking histamine and I am miserable. Histamine is a small molecule that binds to receptors in a wide variety of tissues including, alas, the respiratory system. It happens to increase vascular permeability - in other words, it's causing fluids to leak through my capillilary walls and into my nose. Sigh.

I'm fighting back by taking a histamine antagonist, diphenhydramine to be precise. Antagonists bind to a receptor and block its response, in this case inhibiting the H1 histamine receptors in the respiratory tract (H2 receptors cluster in the gastrointestinal tract - and so H2 antagonist, like Zantac, are used to treat heartburn). Agonists are molecules that bind to a receptor and cause a response. Why would you want to take something that binds to a histamine receptor and provoke a response? Turns out there are a couple of drugs that are histamine agonists, including one for Meniere's disease and another that may have theraputic potential for diabetes.

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What does the term amine have to do with camel dung? Read about it here.