Why Are Allergies Increasing

There is no doubt that allergies are increasing every year, but it also can be the effect of people getting more and more health conscious and presenting to the doctor for even small symptoms.

Scientists don’t know yet why some people are allergic and others don’t. It seems that genetic heritage plays a role in developing allergies, but nothing is certain.

This is established that allergies affect members of the same family, but this had happened all the time, so this cannot be the cause of the increase of allergies we’ve witnessed over the past years.

In their attempt to explain this allergy incidence increase, medical scientists came up with another theory which says that our immune system, due to the fact that it has no more natural enemies like worms or other parasites, tries its powers on common substances, triggering allergic reactions. Our body produces antibodies to fight against natural enemies. Along the centuries of existence, humans with strong immune system survived and passed their genes, detrimental to the ones who had weaker immune system, which were extinguished little by little. Stronger defense mechanisms imply stronger reactions to the environment, so allergic reactions are more likely to occur at more and more people descending from ancestors with strong immune system.

Another issue that was examined, was the exaggerate cleanliness many women are keeping for their children. Some of them are almost obsessed, so the body of their children doesn’t have a chance to form antibodies in early childhood. Those children kept away from dirt and germs are the ones who are most susceptible of developing allergies later in life. Many doctors now advise, based on research that has been done, that a certain level of dirt is actually beneficial for small children. So, maybe mothers shouldn’t be using all those germ-killer products which are heavily advertised nowadays.
Another issue is that now we have access to all types of foods all year round. In my childhood, I could only eat bananas during our winter. They were not available in any other season. This made it less probable that children develop allergies to bananas, because the level of exposure was low. The same applies for tomatoes and apples, which are some of the foods with allergenic potential. If you are predisposed to allergy to them, the more you consume those foods, the more your allergy gets serious, so having them available permanently is certainly not beneficial.

Soy allergy is also increasing. Some years ago, very few people ate soy products, as they were not available on such a large scale like they are today.

Technology is also a menace for health. Only think that is you work in a modern office building, where windows cannot open, and air is circulated through an air conditioning system, you are exposed to all allergens like perfumes, dust or mold from the entire building, which are sucked into the ventilation system and circulated into your office.

Pollution is also a major player in allergies development. Cars are already too many, the petrol-based fuels are highly polluting the air in big cities, so we have no chance of breathing fresh air for the most time of our lives.

Allergy is really a problem getting bigger every day.

Categories: Allergy general info
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Spring is here, with all fresh flowers and trees blooming, the sun which is not yet so hot but nicely warm, and of course, with the spring rains which are real showers, bringing a lot of mud into the equation. If you have a dog, you must know what challenges you face every spring to keep your home clean, with all that mud which is brought into your house every day. There are a few tricks you can do, in order to minimize the damage and keep your home clean and your dog happy in the spring:

Groom your dog every day. Brush him thoroughly, so you can remove the loose hairs. Your dog likes mud, so he will take every excuse he can to jump in the middle of it and take it on its fur. This is why you need to trim the dog hair as short as possible, especially on the legs and paws. Clip their toenails short, for preventing mud accumulating too much between them.

When the dog comes inside after playing in the dirt, don’t let him jump all over the place. If the dog is small, you can take it directly to the bathroom and give him a good shower. In case of big dogs, make sure you put a wet towel at the entrance, so the dog steps on it before spreading the mud all over the place. The luckiest dog owners are those who live in houses with backyards. In this case, you can clean your dog with a garden hose before attempting to enter the house. Another aspect of keeping the dog and the house clean is prevention of dog allergy, which can be such a pain, causing all kinds of itching and swellings to your dog.

If you are allergic to dust and pollen, letting your dirty dog inside the house, and especially in the bedroom will get you in trouble, as this will trigger the mechanism of allergic reactions and you’ll be unhappy.

Categories: Pets Allergy
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Allergies and sensitivities are more and more widespread, and not only in poor countries, but also in developed ones.

Theories are multiple, like using more additives for foods, more plastic recipients, more food coloring substances. We eat unhealthy things in large quantities and we don’t even know it. How many of you actually read the product labels and refrain from buying if seeing too many chemicals inside? Too few, probably.

Eating the same food for long time leads to an increased sensitivity and makes the body to hyper react, thus triggering allergic response from the immune system.

A food allergy does not come alone. It can bring ailments such as itches, hives, pains, urticaria, eczemas, suffocation, swelling, nausea and many more symptoms which are highly unpleasant and even life-threatening sometimes.

Food sensitivities and allergies exhaust our immune system, as they are challenging it to fight imaginary enemies, thus weakening it and making it to become unprepared when facing real challenges like cancer and other similar diseases.

The fact that we got used to process foods is another factor which adds to allergies increase. Our ancestors were eating much more raw foods than we do, and they surely didn’t use chemicals such as additives or preservatives.

The bad news is that allergies are practically incurable, all existent medication being used only to alleviate symptoms like sneezing, coughing, abnormal mucus secretions, hives, rash or urticaria. Not even the allergy tests can determine all allergens. For example, allergy to medications cannot be tested, because it is far too dangerous and besides, each organism reacts in a particular way to particular substances, so a common pattern hasn’t been established yet.

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There are people who crave for certain foods. It is not unusual that pregnant women have such cravings, so they send their husbands to buy strawberries in the winter, in the middle of the night. Craving for particular foods is thought to be in fact the need of your body for certain substances that those foods contain.

Some scientists think that cravings are allergy-specific, but they cannot find a sustained reason for that statement. Anyway, if this is true, then you can say that allergies can make you fat, because the more you crave, the more you eat, the fatter you get. It happens often that a person allergic to strawberries, for example, feels a very strong need to eat strawberries, despite the fact that he / she knows very well that it will give them an allergic reaction, eventually getting their arms, legs and even the face sometimes covered with ugly, painful hives and urticaria.

It is possible that this has to do with the body struggling to maintain the endorphins level, thus craving for the allergen to be ingested, likewise the addiction mechanisms. But allergic persons should be aware that exposing themselves frequently to the allergen, will only make their allergy get worse, and eventually they might become fat, if they crave for highly nutritive foods.

Categories: Allergy Tips
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The Problems With Eye Allergy

Eye allergy is not necessarily a disease in itself. Allergies can often give ocular symptoms. Especially spring allergies, like hayfever or the allergy to weed pollen can result in teary, itchy eyes, or even can cause your eyes to get red and swollen, congestion which can be extremely unpleasant. So it is possible that you get ocular symptoms without actually suffering from an eye allergy, but from another type of allergic reaction.

Why Allergy Occurs

We are built to defend ourselves from natural enemies. Each time an enemy enters our body, it’s immune system triggers an attack to neutralize and eliminate the danger. In case of allergic persons, the body sees inoffensive substances like pollen, mold or dust like they were sworn enemies of the body, so it tries to defend itself by triggering what we call allergic reactions. The chemicals which help your body defend itself are histamines, and their presence in big numbers leads to allergy symptoms like oedema, itchiness, irritation, urticaria, sneezing or chocking.

There are many possible allergens, substances that can trigger an allergic reaction. Most allergens guilty for eye symptoms are airborne. Pollen gone with the wind, mold from our basements, dust which is everywhere, and animal dander (small, exfoliated skin particles) are the allergens that merely affect the eyes, triggering those unpleasant symptoms. These are also the factors which can lead to an eye allergy, bothering you and decreasing your life quality because of the annoying symptoms.

If not treated, an eye allergy can easily lead to a condition called allergic conjunctivitis, which has as a result the inflammation and irritation of the eye tissue, and which will occur every time the allergic patient is exposed to the allergen which caused the condition.

Relief for Irritated Eyes

As there is no cure for eye allergy (not for any other kind of allergy), if you cannot stay away from the allergens which cause you pain, here’s what you could do to minimize the damage:

1. After consulting your doctor, take some over the counter local medication, like artificial tears, or liquid antihistamine products, and put them in your eyes.

2. Consult pollen bulletins (on internet or on the TV news) and stay inside your home during their peak days, if you can. It is very important not to expose yourself particularly in the afternoon and in the evening, as that’s the most dangerous moment of the day in the respect of the eye allergy triggers present in the air.

3. Get yourself an air filter which will keep part of the allergen particles away from you.

4. Take antihistamine medication as a prevention means, starting a few weeks before the pollen season comes. Always ask your doctor when you want to take any drugs, even if they are sold without prescription.

Under no circumstances should you take advice you find either on the internet or in health magazines. Your physician knows best what you need, so you need to ask him for advice on anything that you’ve read or heard and you might want to try. Allergy is merciless and your eyes are too fragile to allow them get damaged just because you acted foolishly.

Categories: Eye Allergy
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An allergy sufferer has an inherited malformation which determines the white blood cells to misidentify harmful substances and overreact to a foreign substance which may be totally harmless to the body. If a person with a nuts allergy eats nuts, the white blood cells mistakenly think that the body is being invaded and produces many times more antibodies than are needed to fight the invaders.

When you think about health and nutrition, it’s important to be aware of how various food stuffs affect your wellbeing.

This is very hard to believe, but most of the foods we consume on daily basis have allergen potential. Cereals and bread contain gluten, which is one of the most widespread allergens, tomatoes contain sodium glutamate, and dairy products are based on lactose, which is known for giving intolerance to a large number of people worldwide.

Allergy is hard to diagnose sometimes, because the symptoms may vary so much that doctors are tempted to run a series of other tests before considering allergy. One of the allergy complications which has to do with hearing, is otitis media, an affection of the middle ear. Otitis media can lead to temporary hearing loss, and if it is not treated, it may lead to definitive hearing loss.

Some of the symptoms are ear suppuration, due to the swelling of the Eustachio tube membrane, which prevents internal ear from being ventilated. It is a painful disease and it affects a lot of children at least once in a lifetime.

This is why parents are responsible to treat ear affections of their children with maximum attention, and go to the doctor at the smallest symptoms. The given treatment, in case of otitis media, should be strictly followed, because if children are small and they are subject to recurrences of this ailment, they may end up by having social troubles and not being able to distinguish and speak words correctly.

Moreover, if otitis media is a cause of an allergy, it is very important that the parent pays attention to preventive measures. Minimize your child’s exposure to the specific allergens, if you want him to grow up healthy and live a normal life.

Categories: Allergy general info
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A New Vision on Allergies

Both human and pet allergy seem to be increasing over the past years. Glycobiology is a new science field which appeared as a consequence of allergies study. It points shows that many allergies have the same origin: the way we feed ourselves and the way we feed our pets. If we were more careful with the food we eat and we give our dogs and cats, we would all be less sensitive to all allergens which are pretty much everywhere around us, in almost all seasons.

There was this 12-year longitudinal study with humans who enrolled in the study when they were young and healty. The result showed that the functional status of their immune systems declined, with 3% per year on average. This quick fall is linked to an increase in the incidence of auto-immune ailments and a boost of allergies of all kinds, including allergies to pets.

The funniest part is that while we are allergic to pets, pets develop allergies to allergens which are common for humans.

The findings of Glycobiology suggest that we can avoid allergy symptoms and sensitization, by an adequate feeding, which would supply the body all nutrients which are necessary for its proper functioning, while staying away from allergenic foods.

Glycobiology showed the fact that each cell in the mammalian organism needs 8 sugar molecules for proper functioning. These sugars interact and merge with protein and fat molecules into glycoforms. Glycoforms get attached to the surfaces of the body cells. One of their most important roles is to enable cells to communicate effectively with each other.

Whenever these sugars don’t perform their duties properly, cell-to-cell communication tends to break down and some form of illness starts to develop.

An insufficiency of these sugar molecules attacks mostly the immune system, because it causes the cells of the immune system to become, in effect, partially blind. These cells can then become over-reactive in attacking allergens of all kinds and even in attacking the tissues of the body; on the other hand, ironically, they may become under-reactive in attacking true pathogens that are serious threats to the body.

Unfortunately, six of these crucially-important sugar molecules are seriously lacking in the modern diet, so we are left only with the other 2 to protect us. They are commonly found, however, in vine-ripened fruits and vegetables and also in many of the wild foods that our stone-age ancestors consumed in abundance.

When these glyconutrients, as they are called technically (glyco from the Greek word for “sweet”), are provided in adequate quantity to the body through supplementation, all of the cells in the body start functioning much more effectively. This is especially true for cells in the immune system. As cell-to-cell communication improves in this system, it tends to become better modulated–that is, less likely either to over- or under-react. Correspondingly, allergies and auto-immune conditions tend to diminish or disappear.

Just as these crucial glyconutrients are lacking in the modern diet for humans, they are similarly deficient in nearly all commercial pet food, which is also loaded with artificial dyes, perservatives and additives.

This is just the way it is: modernization leads to a decrease of life quality. There is no wonder that allergies affect mostly people in developed countries, rather than inhabitants of third world or underdeveloped countries. Refined foods will kill us slowly, and not at once, but in big and repeated pains.

However, we can help our body by taking nutritional supplements. For instance, Nutratose is a revolutionary product, combining eight essential glyconutrients to support optimal health.

If you want to improve your memory, you can take Procognin. Procognin helps improve memory and cognitive function.

Glyconutrients can even support your wight loss attempts. CarboCurb supports weight loss by providing fiber to reduce carbohydrate absorption. You don’t have to starve, in order to get a body admired by everybody.

Categories: Pets Allergy
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