A friend of mine and I were talking. He’s about 20 years older than me, but we both seem to have noticed that allergies seem a lot more prominent today more than ever before. I wonder if other SDopers might agree, if they’ve noticed a similar trend, and if there might be a medical explanation for this? - Jinx
Yes, that is true.
It has actually been documented, by a number of studies, which have been reported on in the various media.
At present, the theory is that vastly improved sanitation and the elimination of internal parasites from people in medically and technologically advanced countries has resulted in a situation where, in a significant number of people, you have an immune system primed to attack invaders and no invaders to attack. The system then either fixates are substances that should be innocuous, or even turns on the body, resulting in auto-immune diseases. As I said, that’s the current “best guess” - the theory is not entirely proven although there is some interesting evidence for it.
It should also be noted that incidences of report are also higher in developed countries. That probably skews the numbers a little bit.
I’m sure things like airtight houses and carpeting do have something to do with it as well (more with allergies in the last hundred years than the last 20, albeit.) Still, when I was a kid I’d never heard of peanut allergies.
This is something that makes me really curious. Why peanuts and why in the last 15 years?
Possibly people who had peanut allergies up to a hundred years ago just died and so if there is a genetic component it was being selected against. Now they are saved or don’t come in contact with peanuts after the first adverse reaction to them.
No cite, but I’ve heard/read that the increase in allergic people is partly due to the common use of male plants in (sub)urban landscaping. Female plants produce flowers/fruit, which are messy to clean up, while male plants only produce pollen. Pollen, of course, is a prime allergen.
I read one study (cite not available, unfortunately) that said urban children with air conditioned homes and schools are more subject to allergies than rural children. Kids who grow up playing in the dirt are exposed to various allergens and germs, and their immune systems develop the appropriate antibodies. Urban kids are more “protected” and their immune systems therefore become more sensitive (as Broomstick said).
I have often wondered if there is any correlation between the increasing prevalence of bans on smoking and the frequency of environmental allergic reactions. Back when both of my parents smoked (as did the parents of most of my friends), kids’ allergies seemed to be much more rare. It’s my half-assed theory that smoke in the environment kept our immune systems “revved up” and suppressed most allergic reactions.
Why do you think the second paragraph of your post is half assed, when it looks to me to be very much an extension of the first one?
If children playing in the muck become more exposed to allergens and germs and their body learns how to fight them, why should that be any different from kids breathing in the muck that comes out of a cigarette?
I think you’re right on both counts; it makes sense to me, any way.
To say that there are more allergies today than previously may not be accurate. Rather, less people die from allergies today as we are more adept at identifying allergies, their causes, and treating them. The fewer people who die from anaphylactic shock and other allergy-related conditions, the larger percentage of people in a society will exhibit those illnesses. They are not culled out by death.
That’s not to say there are not more allergens present in our atmosphere. There are many more enviornomental pollutants, including chemicals, in our air. These can provoke allergies. In fact, a multiple chemical sensitivity syndrome is gaining recognition among health care professionals. See http://www.mcsrr.org/factsheets/mcsdisorders.html
Now, when it comes to our immune system, doubtless the American obsession with anti-bacterials may be doing more damage than good. If our immune system loses the ability to deal with little stuff (because the little stuff is no longer present), can we expect it to be able to handle the big stuff? No, we don’t want our children or ourselves infected with parasites nor do we want to suffer diarrhea every time we drink from a different water source, however, certain flora and fauna are meant to live in moderate amounts in and on our bodies. Eradicating all of them just doesn’t seem healthful and probably isn’t. If we do not allow our immune system to develop immunities to a wide variety of organisms we cannot expect our bodies to be able to fight more severe variations of those organisms when they threaten us.
But do you really think that many kids were dying of peanut-related anaphylactic shock when we were younger? Enough kids to require peanut-free lunchrooms and airline pretzels? Honestly? I mean, wouldn’t there have been PSAs about how “Choosy Moms Choose Jif, the Silent Killer”? American kids largely grow up on peanut butter, even! If all these kids really are deathly allergic to peanuts (which is another discussion entirely), I just don’t think “they all died from it and now you see more survivors” explains the breadth of the phenomenon.
Me, I ate plenty of dirt as a child. The funny thing is, now at 24 I’m turning up allergic to a few things - the PVA glue we use in the conservation lab makes me sniffle madly, and switching deoderants gave me a dreadful rash this past summer. Maybe I better go make some mudpies.
Minor contribution: I’ve never had many allergies (one or two as a kid, plus poison oak). I grew up in the country. But on the last doctor’s visit, I asked about why a long-lasting post-nasal drip, and she looked in and said I had typical allergic nose, and attributed it to living in the Santa Clara Valley for the last dozen years and being exposed to the pollens. And guess what, now it’s winter and the pollens are gone, it’s cleared up.
So, live invaders like viruses, bacteria, and parasites tune the immune system so that it is not over-sensitive to the miscellaneous (usually organic chemical) allergens in our environments?
But, repeated exposure to the allergens detunes the system, resulting in overreaction?
Is this how it works?
Hoo, boy, let’s see if I can touch on all this stuff in a coherent manner.
No, I don’t buy the “male plant landscaping” argument because a lot of plants contain both male and female parts, and in any case we’ve always had male plants in the environment.
There really are more people with allergies than there used to be, and it’s not a matter of there being more survivors. MOST allergies do not result in death, just misery.
There’s also some confusion about allergies vs. irritations - no one, despite protestations to the contrary is “allergic” in the narrow definition to cigarette smoke. It doesn’t provoke an IgE antibody reaction. It can, however, further irritate already irritated nasal passages and lung tissue. Ditto for a lot of “chemical pollutants”, which provoke a lot of problems and may have similar symptoms to allergies, but are not allergies.
In some instances we’re looking at better diagnosis - in the old days most folks had more pressing concerns than why their nose tended to run in August - but that’s only a minor aspect of this whole thing. One of the supports for the “too sanitary” argument is that, during the 20th Century, where folks went in to small, isolated communities where sanitation was crude to non-existant and upgraded waste disposal there were instances where you went from zero allergies in the adult generation to the 15-20% allergy level of the industrial world in the next crop of kids.
As for what you wind up allergic to… there are some common offenders (such as peanuts) but another broad category are items you are heavily exposed to.
I think the study you’re thinking of may have involved the Hutterite community (IIRC) (or was a study inspired by their findings). It’s a small, close-knit group with a genetic tendency towards asthma. However, Hutterite children have significantly lower incidences of asthma attacks and other symptoms of their disease compared with, say, urban children. I don’t know if this is simply when the theory was born, or if they actually did a study with this community to prove this, but researchers believed it was their lifestyle–clean, well-maintained homes (no cockroaches, no smoking, stuff like that) but plenty of exposure to dirt and animals and manure outside (they’re primarily farmers). That seemed to be the ideal mix for one’s immune system to grow robust.
In short, too little exposure to dirt/germs = bad. Too much exposure to (certain) dirty things= bad. Something in the middle = good
There have been several recent studies suggesting that lack of intestinal parasites leads to an increase in asthma cases. In populations previously free of asthma, the disease is being seen following eradication of intestinal parasites.
From http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/sci_tech/highlights/010601_asthma.shtml
Probably because peanuts are massively consummed in the USA. In France, where it’s nearly impossible to find peanuts butter, peanuts allergy is essentially unheard of. I met the first person allergic to peanuts a couple years ago, and she had developed this allergy in her 40s.
The most common allergy I’ve heard people mentionning here (only personnal anecdotal evidences) is allergy to cheese. Though I never knew someone who had a really severe allergy to it (like in you might die if you eat some).
I read somewhere (don’t take my word for it, I’m really unaknowledgeable about it) is that kids fed too early and in too massive quantities with a specific food (in this case peanuts butter) are much more likely to devellop an allergy to this product.
The Master Speaks on peanut allergies:
I lived on a farm as a child (I’m now 55). I was constantly in close proximity to farm animals, their feces, and dirt. We played in the dirt. We built in the dirt in the manner of building sand castles on the beach. We were always barefoot in the dirt and especially the mud. We loved the feeling of mud squishing up between our toes. In other words, we were constantly immersed in a sea of microorganisms. Most of the other children in the community had the same lifestyle.
Nobody had allergies. Nobody. I learned that they existed from ads on the TV in the early '60s.
Now I live in a large urban environment. I still have no allergies. It seems that most people I know consider allergies to be normal. As in, “What!? You have no allergies”!?
I am quite convinced that the studies which implicate an antiseptic lifestyle in the increase in people with allergies are on to something.
I read yet another study a few months ago (no cite, so quit asking) where the researchers claimed to see a strong correlation between Hepatitis A and allergies. It seems that prior generations (the currently 60+ crowd) had infection rates of 70+% of the relatively innocuous virus and had lower rates of allergy. Now that sanitation is better, infection rates have fallen to less than 10% and allergies have mushroomed. So basically it all comes down to sanitation again, but with a more specific virus. Hardly conclusive, but there it is.
It’s just more proof that God hates and loves our misery. Either we’re crawling with worms and die from cholera and tyhoid on a regular basis or we get asthma and other allergies and just WISH we were dead.
Here is another article on the increase in Asthma. One suggestion for the increase is the fall in the incidence of TB and measles. :-
http://www.familydoctor.co.uk/htdocs/ASTHMA/ASTHMA_specimen.htmL