do you catch allergies or are you born with them?

Question

my mom thinks that you catch allergies, but i disagree. I believe that you are born with them or inherit them from your parents. or in this case i got them from my mom. (i think) she says that i spend too much time around the cat so i ended up forming allergies and getting a bad sinus area. so who do you think is right?

Answer 1

Allergies can not be caught, from one person to another. Other wise every one would have allergies to the same thing. You can have predisposition to allergies, family genitics also play a role too.

Allergy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article deals specifically with IgE-mediated hypersensitivity. For other types of allergic or hypersensitive reactions see the main article: Hypersensitivity
An allergy can refer to several kinds of immune reactions including Type I hypersensitivity in which the person's body is hypersensitised and develops immunoglobulin E (IgE) a certain type of antibodies to typical proteins. When a person is hypersensitised, these substances are known as allergens. The word allergy derives from the Greek words allos meaning "other" and ergon meaning "work". Type I hypersensitivity is characterised by excessive activation of mast cells and basophils by immunoglobulin E resulting in a systemic inflammatory response that can result in symptoms as benign as a runny nose, to life-threatening anaphylactic shock and death.
Allergy is a very common disorder and more than 50 million Americans suffer from allergic diseases. Allergies are the sixth leading cause of chronic disease in the United States, costing the health care system $18 billion annually.


History

The term and concept of "allergy" was coined by a Viennese pediatrician named Clemens von Pirquet in 1906.[1] He observed that the symptoms of some of his patients might have been a response to outside allergens such as dust, pollen, or certain foods. For a long time all hypersensitivities were thought to stem from the improper action of inflammatory immunoglobulin class IgE, however it soon became clear that several different mechanisms utilizing different effector molecules were responsible for the myriad of disorders previously classified as "allergies". A new four-class (now five) classification scheme was designed by P. G. H. Gell and R. R. A. Coombs. Allergy has since been kept as the name for Type I Hypersensitivity, characterised by classical IgE mediation of effects.
[edit]Signs and symptoms

Allergy is characterised by a local or systemic inflammatory response to allergens. Local symptoms are:
Nose: swelling of the nasal mucosa (allergic rhinitis)
Eyes: redness and itching of the conjunctiva (allergic conjunctivitis)
Airways: bronchoconstriction, wheezing and dyspnoea, sometimes outright attacks of asthma
Ears: feeling of fullness, possibly pain, and impaired hearing due to the lack of eustachian tube drainage.
Skin: various rashes, such as eczema, hives (urticaria) and contact dermatitis.
Head: while not as common, headaches are seen in some with environmental or chemical allergies.
Systemic allergic response is also called anaphylaxis. Depending of the rate of severity, it can cause cutaneous reactions, bronchoconstriction, edema, hypotension, coma and even death.
Hay fever is one example of an exceedingly common minor allergy — large percentages of the population suffer from hayfever symptoms in response to airborne pollen. Asthmatics are often allergic to dust mites. Apart from ambient allergens, allergic reactions can be due to medications.

What Causes Allergies
The substances that cause allergic disease in people are known as allergens. “Antigens,” or protein particles like pollen, food or dander enter our bodies through a variety of ways. If the antigen causes an allergic reaction, that particle is considered an “allergen” – and antigen that triggers an allergic reaction. These allergens can get into our body in several ways:

Inhaled into the nose and the lungs. Examples are airborne pollens of certain trees, grasses and weeds; house dust that include dust mite particles, mold spores, cat and dog dander and latex dust.
Ingested by mouth. Frequent culprits include shrimp, peanuts and other nuts.
Injected. Such as medications delivered by needle like penicillin or other injectable drugs, and venom from insect stings and bites.
Absorbed through the skin. Plants such as poison ivy, sumac and oak and latex are examples.
What Makes Some Pollen Cause Allergies, and Not Others?

Plant pollens that are carried by the wind cause most allergies of the nose, eyes and lungs. These plants (including certain weeds, trees and grasses) are natural pollutants produced at various times of the year when their small, inconspicuous flowers discharge literally billions of pollen particles.

Because the particles can be carried significant distances, it is important for you not only to understand local environmental conditions, but also conditions over the broader area of the state or region in which you live. Unlike the wind-pollinated plants, conspicuous wild flowers or flowers used in most residential gardens are pollinated by bees, wasps, and other insects and therefore are not widely capable of producing allergic disease.

What is the Role of Heredity in Allergy?

Like baldness, height and eye color, the capacity to become allergic is an inherited characteristic. Yet, although you may be born with the genetic capability to become allergic, you are not automatically allergic to specific allergens. Several factors must be present for allergic sensitivity to be developed:

The specific genes acquired from parents.
The exposure to one or more allergens to which you have a genetically programmed response.
The degree and length of exposure.
A baby born with the tendency to become allergic to cow's milk, for example, may show allergic symptoms several months after birth. A genetic capability to become allergic to cat dander may take three to four years of cat exposure before the person shows symptoms. These people may also become allergic to other environmental substances with age.

On the other hand, poison ivy allergy (contact dermatitis) is an example of an allergy in which hereditary background does not play a part. The person with poison ivy allergy first has to be exposed to the oil from the plant. This usually occurs during youth, when a rash does not always appear. However, the first exposure may sensitize or cause the person to become allergic and, when subsequent exposure takes place, a contact dermatitis rash appears and can be quite severe. Many plants are capable of producing this type of rash. Substances other than plants, such as dyes, metals, and chemicals in deodorants and cosmetics, can also cause a similar dermatitis.

Answer 2

You can inherit the disposition of developing an allergic reaction from your parents. It does not mean you will be allergic to the same things. It means that your body is more likely to have an abnormal reaction to outside irritants. However, it would not be correct to state that you "catch" allergies. Your problem with cats would more than likely be there if you spent one day or million days with it. The only thing that would be different is the severity of the reaction(ie more time, the worse it gets).

Answer 3

You can develop allergies anywhere along the road of your life. Some people are more suseptible than others. I was nearly 40 before I ever had a single allergy and now I am allergic to just about everything.... :(

Answer 4

Some allergies you are born with, and some of those you outgrow. My sister was allergic to milk as a little kid, but she outgrew it when she was about 5. You can also develop allergies, but I don't think that it's from spending a bunch of time to the allergen. You don't, however, "catch" allergies, but you can develop them.

Answer 5

You both are. I have allergies as well..I never had them as a child. They started developing a couple years ago. On the other hand my brother inherited my mothers allergy from cats. And my mom had caught these allergies over time because she used to have a cat and be fine as well. If your mom is allergic to them, then you have probally inherited it. But it can go either way.

Answer 6

You can be born with allergies, but as far as ''catching them" no, you can't catch an allergy it's not a virus. However, you can develop allergies as you progress in life.

Answer 7

The answer is somewhere in the middle.

Tendancies toward allergies run in the family. But you aren't exactly 'born' with them: They develop, sometimes suddenly. And there's not always any rhyme nor reason to it.

Answer 8

Allergies are something YOU DO NOT CATCH.
As the environment changes, and your body changes, you may become allergic to things that you weren't allergic to before.

Answer 9

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Answer 10

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