How did the human beings get allergies in the first place?
I was just wondering how us, human beings, have allergies. Did the pre-historic people had it too? And how did these allergies develop?
The really, really, simplified answer is that allergies are a product of your immune system – most of the processes are designed to protect you from harmful things, but sometimes, the immune system initiates a response when presented with something relatively harmless, or overreacts, leading to what we would call an allergy (more appropriately, a hypersensitivity reaction). It’s not completely understood, and probably has both genetic determinants as well as environmental ones, but in any case, it’s something that has been around since there have been immune systems, so most likely, prehistoric humans had allergies as well, just like any modern human (or any animal, really), but probably to different things (the most common allergens around today may not be the same ones that were around historically).
i heard its from your parents. for example if your parents ate to many peanut products when they were young or pregnant with you your body is not immune to it therefore you react badly
References :
gr 10 science class
There is a theory that the more antigens we are exposed to, the more the immune system is geared towards dealing with bacteria and viruses.
Nowadays the population is hardly exposed to bacteria and viruses so the immune system starts reacting to other less harmfull antigens. Hence the increase in allergies today.
It has been found that raised levels of Immunoglobulin E (IgE) are an indicator of allergic reactions in people and is partly an inherited trait.
References :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allergy
The really, really, simplified answer is that allergies are a product of your immune system – most of the processes are designed to protect you from harmful things, but sometimes, the immune system initiates a response when presented with something relatively harmless, or overreacts, leading to what we would call an allergy (more appropriately, a hypersensitivity reaction). It’s not completely understood, and probably has both genetic determinants as well as environmental ones, but in any case, it’s something that has been around since there have been immune systems, so most likely, prehistoric humans had allergies as well, just like any modern human (or any animal, really), but probably to different things (the most common allergens around today may not be the same ones that were around historically).
References :
Anecdotal evidence suggests that allergies come from malfunction of the part of your immune system that is used in identifying and immobilizing worms. Populations of people who are infested with worms have virtually no allergies — but once they’ve been dewormed, they start experiencing allergies at rates common in the "civilized" world.
References :
Allergies are immune disorder or a disease of the immune system that involve IgE antigens that are specific for parasites. The purpose of this type of immune response is to control the worm parasites people once had. Today with hookworm and other parasites becoming rarer we find inappropriate allergic reactions becoming more common. The immune system responds to nondamaging matter because the immune system was not exposed to parasitic worms when the person was young.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-03-19-allergies-cover_x.htm
References :
http://www.anthro.ucdavis.edu/ant001s05/ANT1_Example_Paper.pdf
http://autoimmunetherapies.com/helminthic_therapy_evidence/allergies_helminthic_therapy.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-481875/The-bloodsucking-worm-fights-allergies-inside-tummy.html