Allergy Prevention Allergy Common Sense

By Bryon Zirker

Preventing Allergies

For many years concerning allergies medical opinion
has stated that children must be kept away from
potential allergens during the youngest years.
Supposedly this was to protect them from allergies.
This idea defies the premise that basic immunology
puts forth.

In the real world peanut allergies in the United
States and United Kingdom have doubled over the
last ten years. This is occurring as mothers are
told by doctors not to eat peanuts and not to feed
their young babies anything made with peanuts.

In a cover story in USA Today, allergies to peanuts
are 10 times higher in the U.S. and U.K are 10
times higher than allergies to peanuts in Asia
and Africa. Little ones in those areas are routinely
eating peanuts.

Another study by researchers at the Medical College
of Georgia found that children exposed to dogs and
cats in the first year were 45% less likely to test
positive for allergies to pets as children who had
no dog and cat contact.

Common sense already tells us that early exposure
to allergens helps the immune system identify what
is and is not a threat. It makes a lot of sense that
when the immune system has developed over a long
period of time without any exposure to certain
substances, the first time that it is exposed it is
very likely to react to the substance as a harmful
allergen, thus causing allergies.

Peanuts should be used with caution as they pose a
choking hazard to small children. Let them roll
in the grass and hug their dogs and cats and they
may avoid allergies and be healthier as adults later.