Simply put an allergy is an unusual sensitiveness to a substance. It develops when the immune system, which defends our bodies against disease, overacts to a normally harmless substance.
Substances that trigger the symptoms of an allergy are known as allergens. Many, but not all, of these foreign particles float around in the air we breathe.
When we make contact with them they latch onto mast cells present in most organs of our bodies.
In defence, the mast cells release a substance called histamine into the bloodstream and the complex series of reactions to this results in a variety of symptoms such as hay fever, asthma, eczema and hives.
Share This
