• Question: How do you get allergic to something?

    Asked by asiansupreme to Mike, Cees, Anil, Emma, Blanka on 27 Jun 2012. This question was also asked by whcatandcait, whgraceandaim.
    • Photo: Michael Cook

      Michael Cook answered on 27 Jun 2012:

      I think there are a few ways allergies can be picked up. For instance, some people inherit allergies from their parents (or inherit generally being allergic, but to different things). Not all allergies are because of your family though!

      My wife is strongly allergic to cats, but this only developed over the last few years. The doctors told us that it might be a reaction to a change in diet, an infection, or even just living in a different country with different air qualities and so on. It seems like a lot of things can affect allergic reactions!

    • Photo: Emma Trantham

      Emma Trantham answered on 3 Jul 2012:

      As Mike said, we can get allergies because of

      -something to do with who we are (our genetics, our gender, our race)
      -something to do with the environment (pollution, diet, how many differnet organisms we were exposed to as babies, changes in our diet)

      Did you know that scientists now think that if we are not exposed to enough bacteria as babies we are more likely to develop allergies?

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