Talk:Antihistamine

Unclear
Many of the drugs cites are actually used to treat psychosis etc. except loratadine (= claritine) and fexofenadine (=telfast which I added). Are there no other antihistamines in the classical sense, treating allergies? Sikkema (talk) 20:08, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course; they're listed at H1 antagonist. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 22:30, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Audience
This is a very complicated article, that the average person researching would have no idea. It would be nice to have things explained a bit more in laymans terms. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.186.190.119 (talk) 06:34, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I absolutely agree with the above contribution. Is there any chance a friendly editor could have a go at rewriting this for the layperson? 91.105.187.81 (talk) 23:50, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

the use of epipens? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.37.196.191 (talk) 10:16, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

This article has very little information about Histamine Antagonists. Future authors should review the article about Aspirin for a good example. It contains details about the action of the drugs, has a history section, a therapeutic uses section, a mechanism of action section, a chemistry section, an adverse effects section and a few more. I would like to see the Histamine antagonist article include a lot more information about this class of drugs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.210.143.41 (talk) 20:19, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, please some context for those who are not specialists of this topic. I came to this article looking for information on the history and development of antihistamines, and there is no background information given. Update as of 2019- August 21 by Janice Margaret Vian. Here I am in 2019, reading these comments, and I find my own comment from 2012!! I was looking here to see if I should suggest that the history section actually explain how these drugs were developed, from what plant substrate they were discovered, if that is how they were discovered, so that I could appreciate their history. I am especially interested in how they were first used in the history of psychiatry. Janice Vian, Ph.D. (talk) 21:57, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

A historical overview would be useful. When were antihistamines first tried and introduced? Presentations (sprays, capsules, tablets) The list of antihistamines is helpful, but what about dividing it into 1st generation and second generation antihistamines. Everybody got to be somewhere! (talk) 00:20, 5 January 2013 (UTC)


 * It has now been six years since the initial comment in this section asking for a less-technical explanation of what antihistamines are, and so far nothing has been done about it. I am going to take this as encouragement to rewrite the intro, at least, and put it in terms that are much less technical and less medical, saving that stuff for later on in the piece.  If anyone decides to undo this action, please make sure you read this talk page entry first and justify your actions.  Thanks.  KDS 4444  Talk  19:15, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Vitamin C
"Large doses of vitamin C are known to alleviate shock by inhibiting deaminizing proteins that release histamine.[4]" Source: http://www.seanet.com/~alexs/ascorbate/197x/klenner-fr-j_appl_nutr-1971-v23-n3&4-p61.htm I question this (and just removed it), as the only source listed smells of a lone kook, though maybe there's a body of research supporting this I'm unaware of. I suggest if it goes back in that stronger sources be used. 74.230.169.130 (talk) 02:26, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Do antihistamines lose effectiveness as sleep regulators over time?
Does anybody know? I'd like such information to be part of the article. I think it's a fair guess that they do, since receptors usually increase or decrease in amount to compensate for artificial intervention. But I don't know. Again, would like to. Firrtree (talk) 06:36, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Dose vs. Patient Susceptibility
The standard 10 mg dose of cetirizine knocks me out. Church and Church, "Phermacology of Antihistamines," suggest "levocetirizine may cause somnolence in susceptible individuals," implying that it doesn't in others, and that this depends on patient susceptibility rather than just the dose. 173.66.5.216 (talk) 23:52, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

"Antihistamine" article should be about treatments for allergic rhinitis
Because other popular sources of information focus on antihistamines for allergic rhinitis, the primary article on antihistamines in Wikipedia should also have that focus.

There two main meanings for the term "antihistamine".
 * scientific perspective - an antihistamine is any of the class of drugs which oppose the activity of histamine receptors
 * layman perspective - an antihistamine is a drug which treats allergies, specifically allergic rhinitis

The current version of this article emphasizes the scientific perspective rather than the common meaning of the term. There are comments on this talk page that this article is unclear and that it is not appropriately written for its audience. Most people use the term "antihistamine" irrespective of drug class to talk about the common experience of having allergies from springtime, or dust, or animal sensitivity. Here are some popular sources of information which use the term "antihistamine" in the sense of an allergic rhinitis treatment. MedlinePlus, for example, sidesteps the issue by calling their article "antihistamines for allergies",


 * Antihistamines at Mayo Clinic
 * Antihistamines at Mayo Clinic
 * Antihistamines at Mayo Clinic

As supporting evidence that this article is getting mostly layman readers and not sciences, consider the 2016 traffic which was 637,750 pageviews. This ranks around English Wikipedia's #15,000 article by popularity, or within the top 0.3%. Anything over 260,000 views is among the top 1%. Articles which do not have popular interest never have this many pageviews, and because of this, I feel that this is an article with layman readers who expect to find the layman use of the term used here. Perhaps another article, Antihistamine (drug class), could contain information about all the varied types of antihistamines and their uses beyond treating common allergies.

For now, I am going to add content to this article to promote the layman use of the term. I am going to make other experimental changes and discuss those here on the talk page. I would appreciate other comments about the direction of development for this article.  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  18:49, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Social issues around antihistamines for allergic rhinitis
As I described above, I am advocating for a perspective shift for this article to be about "antihistamines for allergic rhinitis" rather than "antihistamines as drugs which have a certain mechanism of action".

I just added sections titled "history", "society and culture", "special populations", and "research". At MEDMOS, our manual of style for medicine, we recommend that articles have these sections. When I added these sections, I focused on "antihistamines for allergic rhinitis". There could be other stories told for other sorts of antihistamines.

Thoughts from anyone?  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  19:03, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Change of lead - comments requested
I just changed the lead of the article. I would appreciate comments. In my version, I introduced the concept as "drugs for allergic rhinitis".

Antihistamines do more than this. I do not think that this article should cover every sense of the term. I also do not want it to be too narrow.

Thoughts from anyone?  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  19:18, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Long-time use for allergies, and for Irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS.
The article is now very negative of long-time use of antihistamines. This also might have benefits, not only risks.

"A study published in the September 2010 issue of “Gut” demonstrated that Ketotifen, a mast cell-stabilizing antihistamine, decreased symptoms and improved quality-of-life measurements in 60 patients with IBS".

https://www.livestrong.com/article/532033-can-taking-an-antihistamine-help-ibs/

ee1518 (talk) 16:30, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Cetirizine listed as both H1 antagonists and H1 inverse agonists. Huh?
H1 antagonists Examples of H1 antagonists include: ... Cetirizine (Zyrtec) ... H1 inverse agonists The H1 receptor inverse agonists include: ... Cetirizine (does not cross the blood–brain barrier)

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If it is indeed both, noting that there would be helpful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.51.240.103 (talk) 03:42, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

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Referencing the respective Wikipedia articles:

"Cetirizine acts as a selective antagonist of the histamine H1 receptor."

"Loratadine acts as a selective inverse agonist of peripheral histamine H1 receptors."

"Desloratadine ... functions as an inverse agonist at the histamine H1 receptor."

So Loratadine (Claritin) is also in the wrong section.

70.51.157.160 (talk) 19:24, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Medical research labels most antihistamines as inverse agonists, yet article says otherwise
The article previously stated most antihistamines are antagonists, but the medical research does not reflect this.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-44477-4 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3666185/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11972592/ 2600:6C65:7C7F:F0DF:34D2:6EFF:FE66:DDAB (talk) 04:51, 4 June 2024 (UTC)