Allergy is one of the most prevalent diseases around the world, as in Europe 1chilld out of 4 suffer from it, these ratio makes this disease one of the most prevalent non-infectious epidemics in Europe in the 21st century, and when talking about its causes studies suggest that it’s related to many aspects such as general life style, the food that we eat, and new studies showed that breastfeeding can help to reduce the early symptoms of this epidemic.
At the 2nd EAACI Pediatric Allergy and Asthma Meeting (PAAM 2011) that opens October 14 in Barcelona, the main issue and the general theme of the meeting is (The detection and reduction of the early causes of childhood allergy), in the meeting Prof. Halken stated that hypotheses which suggest that certain lifestyle and nutrition methods may be a reason behind the infection of early symptoms of allergy, as it has been showed that good breastfeeding in the first 4-6months can reduce the risk of atopic eczema and cow’s milk protein allergy, that’s why researchers say that the occurrence of allergy is usually due to a Combination of genetic and environmental reasons, these reasons may lead to the protection or the development of this disease, also they listed other factor contributing in the occurrence allergy such as pollution especially during the time of childhood and in developed countries.
Also Prof. Halken said that the factors causing allergy have changed within time as the reasons has become larger depending on the new life style creating more factors causing allergy such as exposure to tobacco smoke, food, house dust mites, pets and pollens is a prerequisite for development of allergic diseases, he also added that there still many other unknown factors which cause allergy.
Other than all the external mentioned below factors, Prof. Halken, said that allergies may develop due to genetic factors which can affect the susceptibility to the external environmental factors, so the risk will become more likely and may increase in children who have family medical records and atopic dermatitis.
Age is a changing factor that widely affect the symptoms of allergy as some of these symptoms disappear when growing up, and they may be replaced with other symptoms, as children commonly show allergy symptoms to cow’s milk protein in their first years, whereas allergy to inhalant agents mostly occurs later in childhood.