Eosinophilia

Eosinophilia is an increase in the levels of eosinophils in your blood stream or in a particular tissue in your body. Now, what are eosinophils? What do they do? Why would their levels increase?

Eosinophils

Put simply, eosinophils are a type of white blood cell (WBC). White blood cells are the cells in your blood stream that are part of the immune system. The different WBC types have different functions when it comes to protecting the body from infection.

Eosinophils are specialists, in the sense that they have evolved into a special niche— killing parasites.

They do so in many different ways, but one key weapon in their arsenal is a chemical known as histamine, which they release to improve blood flow. When eosinophils release histamine, we, the patient feel pain, itchiness, redness swelling— the whole nine yards. In a nutshell, eosinophils cause inflammation.

Problem of Plenty

So what is wrong with having too many eosinophils? You’d think that would give you more power to kill parasites and make your immune system stronger. But as with everything else in the body, there is a balance to be maintained. When there are too many eosinophils in the blood stream, they tend to get overexcited and attack normal tissues the way they would fight a parasite. The most common manifestation of such a process is allergies.

When a person suffers from an allergy like hay fever, the excess eosinophils in the nose and nasal tissue start attacking harmless stuff like grass clippings and cause a full blown reaction with inflammation, sneezing, coughing etc. So you see that too much is too bad, just as too little would be.

Common Causes of Eosinophilia

1. Parasitic and fungal diseases
2. Allergies, including to medications or food
3. Adrenal conditions
4. Skin disorders
5. Toxins
6. Autoimmune diseases
7. Endocrine disorders
8. Tumors

Specific Conditions that may cause tissue or blood eosinophilia are:

• Ascariasis (a roundworm infection)
• Asthma
• Atopic dermatitis (eczema)
• Chronic myelogenous leukemia
• Churg-Strauss syndrome
• Crohn's disease
• Drug allergy
• Eosinophilic leukemia
• Hay fever
• Hodgkin's disease
• Idiopathic hypereosinophilic syndrome (HES), an extremely high eosinophil count of unknown origin
• Lupus
• Lymphatic filariasis
• Other cancers
• Other parasitic infections
• Ovarian cancer
• Primary immunodeficiency
• Trichinosis (a roundworm infection)
• Ulcerative colitis

Treatment is all about getting rid of the cause of the eosinophils ire. Systemic antihistamine drugs help to control the activity of the cells and bring down inflammation. But eventually your doctor and you will have to keep the process of diagnosis going until the root cause of the eosinophilia is found. In that sense, eosinophilia is more a symptom of a disease than a disease itself.