What Is Allergy? - An Overview

Your nose is running, you are sneezing and covered in hives, and your eyes itch. It’s allergy season again! Well, there has to be something you can do to feel better.

Your doctors, after all, seem to have a remedy for everything, right? Not for allergies; however, there are ways to relieve allergy symptoms or avoid getting the symptoms even though you can't actually get rid of the allergies themselves.

Allergies are a very common problem, which is affecting at least two out of every 10 Americans.

What Is Allergy?

Allergy, also known as hypersensitivity, simply means an unusual reaction that our body has to everyday substances called allergens in which almost of these are not harmful and have no effect on people who are not allergic.

Clinical Studies About Allergies

Some studies, as quoted from medicalnewstoday, report that allergies are very common. The followings are many are other results of clinical studies about allergies.

Public health authorities estimate that about 20% of people in North America and Western Europe suffer from some degree of hay fever.

A study published in JAMA Pediatrics reported that kids' food allergies cost both families and the US as a whole nearly $25 billion annually.

There are about 30% to 40% of people have an allergy at some stage in their lives, according to Allergy UK. Some years ago, it was only apparent in industrialized countries; however, the middle-income nations are now reporting higher rates of allergies across their populations. It means that the number of people worldwide with allergies is increasing significantly.

The steepest increase in allergies has been observed in children, especially food allergies. Clinical researches by a team from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine reported in Pediatrics that about 8% of American children have some kind of food allergy in which 38.7% of those with food allergies have a history of anaphylaxis and 30.4% are allergic to more than one food.

Another study by researchers from St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital Center, New York, United States, found that foreign-born children who live in the USA have a lower risk of allergies. And this risk grows the longer they remain in America.

How Allergy Occurs? 

Your immune system produces substances known as antibodies. Technically, some of these antibodies protect you from unwanted invaders. An allergy occurs when our body immune system reacts to an allergen as though it is a threat. The body then produces antibodies to fight off the allergen in a reaction.

The next time you come into contact with the allergen, your body remembers the previous exposure and then produces more of the antibodies. It causes the release of chemicals in the body that lead to an allergic reaction.

The severity of allergies varies from person to person and can range from minor irritation to anaphylactic shock, a potentially life-threatening condition. The most effective way of managing an allergy is to avoid all contact with the allergen causing the reaction.

While most allergies can't be cured, there are a number of treatments ranging from medical and non-medical approaches that can help relieve your allergy symptoms.