Understanding Allergies

Understanding allergies and its effect on the immune system will be helpful in deciding on which allergy remedy is best. Seasonal allergies are simply a body’s natural overreaction to every day substances like dust, pollen, mold, and certain foods.

The immune system protects the body from foreign substances, known as antigens, by producing antibodies and other chemicals to fight against them.

Usually the immune system ignores harmless substances, such as food, and fights only dangerous ones, such as bacteria. A person develops an allergic reaction when the immune system cannot tell the good from the bad and releases chemicals like histamine to attack the harmless substance as if it were a threat. Histamine produces many of the symptoms associated with allergies.

The immune system is causing the allergic symptoms in its bid to rid the body of what it sees as invaders. This is not a normal response and occurs only in those individuals who have a overly sensitive immune system or interferon output is low.

An illustration on the effects of an antigen entering your body.

Imagine a invader (like a grain of pollen) entering your nasal passages and latching onto soft mucous membranes. These mucous membranes line our bronchial and nasal passages and contain immune cells, called mast cells, which are loaded with histamines. Receptors sit on top of these mast cells, and when an allergen trigger — such as pollen, mold or pet dander — lands on top of the receptor, it alerts the mast cells, which respond by releasing histamine and other chemicals. The histamine initiates a series of reactions designed to help the body get rid of the intruder, including sneezing, watery eyes and itching.

Understanding allergies is interesting, but you may be only concerned on relieving the symptoms.
To learn more about natural allergy remedies, go to Allergy Remedy .

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