Every day, roughly three million Canadians experience a reaction to chemical compounds ranging from sneezing, coughing and a runny nose to severe or even life-threatening circumstances such as anaphylactic shock.
These chemical compounds aren't the dangerous or toxic stuff found in movie plots and terrorist activities nor are they the byproducts of the chemical industry run amok. These are the ordinary chemical compounds of everyday life - pollens, grasses, bee venom, milk and even peanut butter.
They are the chemical compounds which make up the environment around us.
Allergic reactions affect one in every 10 people and are some of the most common complaints individuals have when seeing their doctors. By all accounts, the number of severely-allergic individuals is increasing - although that statistic must be taken with a grain of salt as there are many other factors which come into play.
So, what exactly is an allergy?
An allergic reaction occurs when the body develops an immune response to a foreign substance called an allergen. In essence, the body tries to eliminate any foreign substance it finds through the use of the immune system. Indeed, one of the primary tasks for the immune system is to build special cells which travel throughout the body looking and removing substances that do not belong.
When these cells don't recognize a substance, they deal with it.
As we are continually subjected to a barrage of bacterial, viral, parasitic and fungal diseases, without our immune system to defend us, we would never have evolved into complex organisms in the first place.
Critical to being a multicellular organism is being able to identify "self" from "non-self" and to be able to eliminate "non-self."
This was the first step in the long road to the evolution of life as we know it. (The perpetual defence of the body from invaders is why immune deficiency diseases, such as HIV, are so a deadly. The disease's virus doesn't kill its host individual but, by compromising the immune system, it makes the individual extremely vulnerable to disease.)
The way the immune system protects our bodies is through the synthesis of immunoglobulins or antibodies. These are protein molecules. They are very large chemical molecules composed of thousands of atoms linked together in peptide units.
All of the immunoglobulins have much the same shape, but each has unique receptors designed to recognize and bind to a specific antigen. In the case of an allergic reaction, the antigens are the allergens and they may be anything - from dust mites to pollen grains to food products.
A specific type of immunoglobulin, designated IgE, is found in large quantities in the blood of individuals who suffer from allergies. Scientists believe it is responsible for the immunological response to allergens. When IgE attacks an invading allergen, it produces a response which is typically a running nose, a cough, or a mild rash. Most of these responses have to do with eliminating the allergen from the body. For example, as annoying as a sneeze is, it is the body's way of expelling material from the airway with sufficient force to ensure it gets blown well clear of the body.
However, sometimes the IgE-induced response is way out of proportion to the amount of allergen present in the body. People die from bee stings or eating seafood or peanuts because of the resulting immunological response is over the top. Our immune system is trying to protect us from an invasion of chemicals, but it just gets carried away.
Some medical professionals argue the increasing number of individuals with allergic responses is a result of not exposing our immune system to a wide enough variety of allergens early enough. We need to let children "eat a peck of dirt" as my mother would say to ensure their immune system develops appropriate levels of response and doesn't overcompensate.
We are chemical beings and we respond to all of the chemicals in our environment, even though we often call these chemicals by many different names such as food or drink, pollen, dust or even other people.
Pretty much everything around us is made up of complex molecules. When we ingest, inhale or take in these compounds by any other method, the antibodies of our immune system determine if they are friend or foe and whether or not they should be eliminated.
In fact, the whole point of the immune system is to eliminate the foes in order to save the friends.
And foes may be anything, but for those of us allergic to tree pollen, this is a very bad time of year because despite our lingering winter, my allergies are starting to kick in.
So, please excuse me while I have an immunological response and sneeze.
