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Asked by anon-251721 on 24 Apr 2020.
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Wei Xun answered on 24 Apr 2020:
There had been a recent increase in the amount of people who suffer from allergic disorders, like asthma. We don’t know exactly why this is, one idea is that we now live in very clean houses compared to in the past, so from a young age we do not get exposed to dirt and allergens that could help our immune system to deal with it (this is called the hygiene hypothesis).
An allergic disorder is when your body’s defence system thinks things that are really harmless, like pollen, are dangerous and need to be destroyed. So instead of trying to fight off bacteria or viruses, it tries to fight pollen instead and often goes a bit overboard.
I cannot see this disappearing suddenly, the immune system is quite complex . There may be better drugs and therapy in the pipeline though, I haven’t kept up to date with the latest, things like immunotherapy (where a small dose of an allergen is introduced) is used quite widely now:
https://www.aaaai.org/conditions-and-treatments/library/allergy-library/allergy-shots-(immunotherapy)
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Anabel Martinez Lyons answered on 24 Apr 2020:
Great question- I don’t think so unfortunately! Allergies and allergic disorders such as asthma happen when our body’s immune response is activated when it shouldn’t be. Symptoms like sneezing and a runny nose are all ways our body are trying to get rid of the invading allergen (an allergen is anything that causes an allergy, be it grass, dust, pollen, fur, etc.). Allergens can also make our body react excessively which can be dangerous, like in the case of asthma when the airways constrict and can stop someone breathing. Allergies can occur throughout our lifetimes by exposure to different allergens which our bodies react to (meaning you can get an allergy as an adult that you didn’t have as a kid), but they can also be caused by a genetic reason. Some families are more prone to certain allergies, for example, than others because of genetic factors the affected family members share.
A friend of mine is working on clinical trials to try to treat peanut allergy. They are giving children very small amounts of peanut oil over time. This gets their bodies used to the peanut oil and stops it activating an immune response. So far this has worked really well! But this type of treatment won’t stop people in the future from developing allergies, so I’m not sure they will every go away as long as we have such complicated immune systems. Thanks for your question!
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