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The following article was published in Your Health Magazine. Our mission is to empower people to live healthier.
Duane M. Gels, MD
Why Allergies?
Annapolis Allergy & Asthma
. http://www.annapolisallergy.com/

Why Allergies?

Soon enough Spring will arrive. Once here, listen, carefully and you will hear the sounds of spring birds chirping, kids playing outdoors.

Yet equally recognizable are the sharp wails of “aaaahhh-choo!” unfortunate allergy sufferers sneezing and blowing their poor noses.

This annual cry of misery produced by the 40% or so of Marylanders that enjoy nasal, eye and sinus allergies rises up from parks, neighborhoods, and grocery store parking lots everywhere when trees and grasses release billions upon billions of pollen grains seasonal allergic rhino-conjunctivitis.

How on earth would these pollen-induced symptoms benefit anyone?

Turns out not very much. Inflammation is a healthy part of the body's response to harmful stimuli, such as infection from external threats like bacteria and viruses. But chronic inflammation can be harmful, and causes a range of illnesses harming otherwise healthy tissues as innocent bystanders a kind of “friendly fire.”

Allergic inflammation, we believe, arose over the millennia to give our primitive ancestors an edge against parasites.

It involves a specific type of allergic antibody (called IgE), which in turn triggers specialized white blood cells (called mast cells) to do what they do best release large quantities of chemicals causing the symptoms of allergies and most of this is “histamine.” It's no coincidence antihistamines help.

You could imagine itching and scratching in response to skin parasites might be helpful, or sneezing and runny noses may have helped remove an accidental “snortful” of microscopic parasites. Those who live in the tropics without allergic antibodies do get more of these infections.

But in Westernized nations, where allergies occur most, parasites simply aren't common anymore. Yet our immune systems have evolved for dealing with parasites over millions of years; a hundred years or so of plumbing and clean water won't make much difference. And when our immune system can't find parasites, it appears they have started to attack harmless pollen grains instead. We feel this as allergies.

Despite recent breakthroughs on how this occurs, no one really knows why any particular individual becomes allergic; both genetics and environment are involved.

Without the need for protection against parasites, mechanisms for allergy might evolve away in a few million years!

Until then, see an allergist to help you through the sneezes and wheezes of springtime.

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