Allergic Rhinitis (AR) is the fifth most common chronic disease in America, affecting as much as 30 percent of the population. Whether allergic to trees, grass, dust, or weeds, sufferers have a greatly impaired quality of life. Their only options are medications that mask symptoms, or expensive injections for the rest of their lives. AR casts an enormous social and economic shadow upon modern society, yet the underlying cause remains a mystery.
AR is deeply personal for me, as I have been suffering for years with an “off the charts” pollen allergy. Like millions of others, I cannot function outside my home most of the year. I am desperate for answers, and I know others are too. AR is simply an overactive immune response to a non-harmful protein. There is nothing inevitable or natural about being allergic to the air you breathe. There must be a cause, and where there is a cause, there is a solution.
I started The Lianeon Project to find solutions to modern problems, with the goal of bringing those proposed solutions together in one place. One place where it could be shared widely with those who had the capability to put those ideas into action. It’s time that someone took on the AR Challenge.
The Solution is Out There
You are probably thinking, what can we do that medical science cannot? If doctors don’t know why some people develop AR, what chance do we have? I believe that chance is rather good, the data are there, we just haven’t connected the dots yet.
There is already a great deal of research to draw from, each providing a piece of a broader puzzle. Why do so many people in Japan suffer from tree allergies when, prior to WW2, such afflictions were unheard of? Why did AR become more prevalent in East Germany after reunification? Why are firstborn children more likely to develop AR than their younger siblings?
The medical research on AR focuses mostly on the mechanism through which the body reacts to pollen. This is not the search for a cure or prevention, it is the search for a marketable pharmaceutical treatment. I am not convinced that the medical establishment is really trying to uncover why AR develops in the first place. This is where we come in.
Our Mission
The research is available online, much of it for free. What we lack is the manpower to review it, connect the dots, and plug in the gaps. I seek at least five volunteers to join me in a 90-day special project to hunt down and bring together ALL of the peer-reviewed literature pertaining to AR from around the world. In 90 days, we will read every last one of them, notate important findings, and summarize those findings into a shared Google Docs document.
The results of this research will be published right here, on The Lianeon Project, for everyone to view and benefit from.
Once we have fully compiled the research we may be able to identify the potential cause of AR, and if we know the cause, we are much closer to the true solution. Not a drug, not a shot, but a chance for a true cure.