In this report we are going to discuss the causes of allergies and why some individuals are more inclined to suffer from allergies than others. The first thing we will need to understand is exactly what an allergy is. An allergy is a response to something beyond the body that the body feels is a threat to it. More specifically, this is the immune system.
Allergies
The fact of the matter is that everybody has allergies in as much as the body is always going to see outside agents like pollen, grass, weeds, as well as foods as invaders. The difference between someone who “suffers” from allergies and somebody who does not is the degree to which the body reacts or in the case of victims, overreacts to the allergen. For instance, let us take hay fever season where the pollen count is particularly large and have two people walk out to the road.
The person that has a normal immune system and does not overreact to every outside allergen will most likely not even notice that the pollen count is high. There’ll not be any itching, sneezing, watering of the eyes or any indications at all. The person that has an overactive immune system, at least to this specific sort of allergen, will start to sneeze. Maybe the eyes will begin to water. In severe cases the individual may even have difficulty breathing, all due to their immune system is seeing the pollen as a great threat.
Immune system
So the question is, why do some people have immune systems that act normally and others have immune systems that overreact? Studies indicate that in most instances this is because these people are genetically disposed to reacting in such a fashion. Maybe they inherited this specific predisposition in their mother or father. Maybe it skipped a generation, but typically that is simply inherited. In other cases, allergies aren’t inherited. In these cases the individual’s immune system doesn’t operate properly or is weakened due to another condition.
Maybe they’re a poor eater and aren’t getting the nourishment they need to keep healthy. This can weaken the immune system and make it behave erratically. In other circumstances the weakened immune system is caused by another underlying problem like an inability of the body to consume a particular protein or amino acid. Either way, the immune system becomes what we call “hyperactive”. This leads to the immune system identifying very benign substances as enemies and then reacts totally out of proportion to the threat itself.
Conclusion
Sometimes the reaction can be severe enough to cause some serious health issues. Yes, people can die from allergies so this is hardly something to be dismissed. Many folks believe that if there’s a genetic predisposition to allergies then there’s nothing that could do to address the issue. This is truly not so. There are many things someone can certainly do to build up their immune system so that allergies are no longer an issue. These will be addressed in future articles.
