Science desk
< March 26	<< Feb \| March \| Apr >>	March 28 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Science Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

March 27[edit]

Could pore cleanser have been an adjuvant?[edit]

Could pore cleanser have been an adjuvant? I have seborrheic dermatitis which is caused by an immune reaction to a yeast or yeasts of Malassezia genus which is a common skin commensal. When I was a spotty adolescent around 1998-2002 I used pore cleanser and Clearasil and the pore cleanser used to sting. I was wondering whether it might have been an adjuvant and resulted in this perpetual immune response. I'm not asking for a diagnosis or treatment advice which I've already had from GPs. --78.148.106.5 (talk) 12:20, 27 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Your first sentence seems like an admissible question to me, but when you add personal history many people will think you are asking for medical advice no matter what you say. So in the future, just state your informational question and don't give any personal account.

As for references, Adjuvant#Types_of_adjuvants gives some common types. I suppose you could see if any of those are listed as ingredients in the cleanser you used. You might also be interested in reading through this patent. [1] SemanticMantis (talk) 14:21, 27 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We have an article Seborrhoeic dermatitis which may be of interest. PubMed is always worth consulting, returning bits of interesting research like [2] [3]. One of the papers [4] gives me the impression that the Malassezia essentially seeks out and annoys the macrophage (with a lectin called Mincle that recognizes specific sugars) rather than the other way around. Immunocompromised persons generally have more trouble with it. Still, there is good support for your model in [5] which emphasizes that IgE-mediated responses are at play in most cases. And indeed, failure of epithelial barrier function leading to exposure to the adaptive immune system is proposed as a part of that. One could argue that any substance interfering with barrier function in this way would be an adjuvant by definition, even if that is a different situation than a usual intramuscular injection. And the pain you mention might (but certainly might not) be indicative of such a barrier breakdown.

But to progress further, the exact brand and composition of the pore cleanser causing the burning must be identified. Are there components that interfere with epithelial barrier function? Was the burning already an indication that IgE responses were involved? I can't say; there's no reverse engineering a single case. But it should be looked into, because obviously, any component in a skin cream that causes a long-term increase in the severity of skin conditions makes very good business sense, and one would like the clever scientists involved to see full recognition for their work. Wnt (talk) 14:50, 27 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Different series of staples worldwide like 80 Series, 100 Series[edit]

I am a lay man. I have been reading material available on internet about staples and their different series. But I fail to understand what these different staples series mean. Eg. 80 Series staple. The same word is being used by staple manufacturers across the globe. There are other series too, like 100 series, N series, 90 Series, 92 Series, etc, But I do not understand what these different series mean.

Request, please help to resolve my query in as much details as possible.MBJoshi1147 (talk) 17:14, 27 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Staple_(fastener)#Standards says that in the USA, ASTM_International covers standards for driven fasteners. You can see a copy of ASTM F1667-05 here [6]. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:22, 27 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]