Allergies - Airborne

Unless your immune system has been compromised, the body fights back very effectively when a substance the body identifies as "foreign" enters.

These foreign substances are called antigens. When the body detects one, the immune system manufactures specific antibodies that attach to and neutralize the antigen; however, for those with allergies, a normally harmless substance such as grass pollen, peanuts, or wasp venom can cause an immune response that results in what we know as allergy symptoms.

Smoking cigarettes is never good. Most of us know that fact; however, from time to time it's healthy to review what the Federal Government has to say.

Smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death and has negative impacts on people at all stages of life. It harms unborn babies, infants, children, adolescents, adults, and seniors. The list of diseases caused by smoking has been expanded to include abdominal aortic aneurysm, acute myeloid leukemia, cataract, cervical cancer, kidney cancer, pancreatic cancer, pneumonia, periodontitis, and stomach cancer. These are in addition to diseases previously known to be caused by smoking, including bladder, esophageal, laryngeal, lung, oral, and throat cancers, chronic lung diseases, coronary heart and cardiovascular diseases, as well as reproductive effects and sudden infant death syndrome.

Allergic reactions trouble millions of people every year. In the USA alone, 45-50 million people suffer from them.

Airborne allergies are caused by wind-blown pollens generated by trees, grass, plants and weeds. Because pollen grains are small and buoyant, they can remain airborne for hundreds of miles.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (the investigatory workplace agency of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) tracked Bronchiolitis obliterans, a disease which destroys the lungs, to popcorn plants. According to an article in the Baltimore Sun, NIOSH decided that "... the butter flavorings, and most likely diacetyl, caused the disease. NIOSH documented that diacetyl gave off toxic vapors when it was heated and, in some of the plants, found the highest incidence of disease among workers in the quality-control areas, where the packaged corn, ready for market, was popped in microwaves and sampled."

Because there are no cures for allergies, it is important to know the most common triggers for allergies caused by indoor and outdoor air, triggers for allergies involving the eyes and skin, for food and drug allergies, for insect, and latex allergies.

Editor's Note:

"Race" is sometimes mentioned as a risk factor in the development of certain cancers and a number of other diseases. When you read this in a discussion about an illness, note that the explanation seldom refers to anything biological. Instead, it usually refers to behavior, such as eating habits. The kinds of behavior usually mentioned as risk factors are culturally determined. They are not genetic or biological.

To some people the buttery odor from buckets of popcorn at the movies is a foretaste of the pleasure to come. For others, it's anathema. If going to the movies makes you cough, here's the reason.

A petition has been sent to OSHA requesting that it set exposure limits to diacetyl, a flavoring in popcorn, "... and immediately issue a bulletin to all employers and employees stating that exposure might result in severe illness; and conduct inspections where workers are exposed to diacetyl and issue citations when necessary." "Employers, in addition to providing respirators, would have to control levels of diacetyl in the air workers breathe and provide medical surveillance and consultation to all employees exposed to the chemical," reports the Baltimore Sun.

As reported by noharm.org, "The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that indoor air pollution is one of the top five environmental risks to public health, potentially causing eye, nose, and throat irritation; headaches; loss of coordination; nausea; cancer; and liver, kidney, and central nervous system damage."

Listening to the NPR program Fresh Air yesterday (June 26, 2006), I heard a remarkable interview with Dr. Paul Epstein, the associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School.

The NIEHS and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have created 11 centers across the country where scientists study environmental influences on children's health. They are focusing "... their efforts on pesticide exposures--how they occur, and the effects they cause in utero and during early childhood. These centers have also studied exposures to other environmental toxicants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and environmental tobacco smoke."