Allergies

Humans, and animals, can become allergic to virtually any substance in the world. To have an allergy to something means that, when your body comes into contact with it, it undergoes and abnormal response. To understand this abnormal response, and what different sorts of allergies there are, we have to understand a little bit about how the body copes with meeting different substances, including germs, and the body’s immune system.

All living organisms come into contact with a variety of substances and other living organisms continually throughout their lives. To stay alive and healthy, all organisms needs to be able to accept substances and organisms that are safe but to be able to get rid of all substances and organisms that might be harmful.

The system in the body that is responsible for this is is called the immune system.

In the human, the immune system is quite complex. There is an underlying natural immunity where foreign substances are rejected from the body. There are also specific immune responses including antibodies which bind to only one specific substance or organism, as well as different cells, including lymphocytes and white blood cells which then destroy the organisms or substances that have antibodies binding to them.

Therefore, a good immune system needs to be able to identify substances, organisms and cells that are either part of the organism or are safe for the organism, and have no response to any of these, but then react appropriately to eliminate any substances, organisms or cells that might potentially be harmful to the body.

An allergy is basically a situation when a certain substance or organism causes an abnormally violent reaction in the immune system, so much so that the immune response has a bad effect on the body itself.

There are different forms of allergy that are classified, depending on the response that the body has.

The information sites below go into these in more detail.

It is normal for children to come into contact with lots of substances and organisms that are foreign to their own bodies and they learn how to respond to these all the time.

There has been an increasing concern that children are becoming more allergic and certain diseases that are based on allergies, such as asthma and eczema, are becoming more common. There have been suggestions that this might be due to an increased cleanliness in our homes, meaning that children are not subjected to so many different substances and organisms at a young age and therefore do not build up their natural immunity. There is also a suggestion that it might be due to different chemicals and substances that are now in our environment that previously children might not have to contend with.

Specialists in this area will continue researching and looking at these. However, many patients need help with specific allergies that they have, particularly if they affect their lives such as food allergies or allergies that cause difficulty in breathing, such as asthma.

Finally, although not strictly allergies, the auto-immune diseases such as lupus, SLE, rheumatoid arthritis etc. occur because the body starts thinking that certain parts of it are, in fact, attacking microbes and develop an allergic response to these cells. The body then starts attacking itself using its own immune system, causing the auto-immune disease. There is another section in medical pages that discusses this in more detail.

Please see the information and specialist websites below for further details of allergies and allergy testing.

Further Reading on Allergies - Medical Pages Information Sites