• Question: Why are we allergic to certain things?

    Asked by spongebob2012 to Mike, Pip, Tim, Tom on 4 Jul 2012.
    • Photo: Tim Stephens

      Tim Stephens answered on 4 Jul 2012:

      I think that some things just make your body react because they provoke your immune system in some way. Pip is probably the best to answer this one though.

    • Photo: Tom Lister

      Tom Lister answered on 4 Jul 2012:

      Allergies are usually an over-response of our immune system to a certain thing. There are ideas along the ‘hygiene-hypothesis’ that suggest we lack contact with pathogens and bugs that our bodies have evolved to deal with, so our immune system is trying to get rid of stuff that isn’t there!

      There are also thoughts that a lot of the chemicals we are exposed to contribute to this, as people fed ‘formula’ as babies are much more susceptible to allergies for example.

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