Anecdotal evidence has long suggested that our allergy problem is getting worse, but until recently it’s been hard to be sure. We are better at diagnosing allergies than we were two centuries ago, say, and the theory has always been that back then, people were more worried about tuberculosis or any of the myriad other things which could kill you or your children in the pre-antibiotic and antiseptic age. A runny nose, itchy rash or upset stomach would barely register, meaning that while fatal reactions to bites and stings certainly happened, if respiratory, dermatological or food allergies did exist, no one took much notice. (On the other hand, diarists like Pepys recorded every niggle, so if chronic allergies had been common before the Industrial Revolution, debilitated sufferers would surely have left clues behind?)
Well, one answer – and it’s one of those answers which is definitely true, but whether it’s true enough to explain all is another matter – is that those with allergies used to die.
50% of all kids died by puberty, recall? From smallpox, colic, acaseofthewhatevers, which is a distinct culling of those not able to deal with the influences of the outside world. Gluten intolerance, cow’s milk maybe, these would be just the sorts of things to tip from maybe survive to probably die young.
Allergic adults today is one of the results of our having conquered that cull.
’…the pre-antibiotic and antiseptic age…’
And the age we’re now in? The overprescribed and overused antibiotic and antiseptic age?
As Larry Niven likes to put it, ‘It’s evolution in action.’
Of course Julia, we might be allergic to all the new things we make as well. I’d just argue that, as the environment changes, whether caused by humans or something else, we and everything else has to adapt. Allergies are just one of the things that weed out the unfit. (I’m allergic to betadine, by the way. I learned this when the bloke who gives me a jab in the eye used it to avoid infection.)
And I suspect, didn’t breed. If you weren’t good physically, you didn’t make a lot of money 200 years ago. Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos probably wouldn’t have got much fanny if he’d lived back then.
Both of these explain why the Amish has less asthma IMO. They got medicine and industrialised later.
“Medical science has made such tremendous progress that there is hardly a healthy human left”.
Aldous Huxley.
I read that the incidence of Autism in the 1960’s and 70’s was 5 in 10,000.
It is now 160 in 10,000.
Better diagnosis? Or something else?
The experts who are telling us that, whilst they acknowledge there has been an increase in certain ailments (for which they have no explanation of cause), they can categorically state with absolute certainty what isn’t the cause…..
June used to be utter hell for me. I never found what it was, plane trees perhaps ? But anyway while living in London I used to have the most appalling hayfever. I live by the seaside and it has mostly gone.
Perhaps Pride Month has cured me.
Loonies blame many allergies on childhood vaccinations. But after The Loonies proved far more perspicacious about Covid than The Eminent Medics maybe I shouldn’t call them loonies.
Anyway my main allergy is hay fever which I had never suffered from until moving to the Cambridge area. Often happens to incomers, according to my GP. I wonder whether it’s the willow pollen? Or the dust of centuries being blown out of the libraries? Or the toxins and radioactive muck in the soil where old labs stood? My money’s on pollen, but which?
BTW, Boganboy
I have the same problem. I had to stop having injections because the idiots at my local butchery wouldn’t listen to me and I kept on going blind for days on end.
I had not the slightest hint of hay fever until moving from East Somerset (the Blackmore Vale) to West Somerset (Taunton) twenty years ago. Now, every summer from June onwards is a streaming, red-eyed mess. Certainly prevents any opportunities to reproduce, which gives some sort of credence to Tim’s theory.
As Otto has found, the symptoms disappear completely by the seaside, so the salty sea breeze might well be the cure. On the other hand, my days by the seaside involve travelling to Brighton races, so it might indeed be be proximity to homosexuality which does the trick.
It’s an eye-opener to look at age distributions in census returns.
In 1891 in England the age graph is more-or-less a triangle, ages 0-9 is 24% and it drops in a straight line to age 100 at 1%. example
In 2021 in England the age graph is a rectangle, each decade of ages up to 69 is close to the same 12%, only then does it drop to 1% by 100. example
People just Do. Not. realise how drastically mortality has changed.
Isn’t it suggested that many of the allergy-based problems are because we’re too clean? Kids don’t get exposed to the levels of “dirt” that was once the norm and thus grow up with compromised immune systems.
Being an utter cynic I wonder whether the apparent massive increase in autism is down to (a) more “enthusiastic” diagnosis thereof, and (b) it can be quite a “profitable” diagnosis for a parent to get for its child.
@Paul, Somerset: ’…so it might indeed be be proximity to homosexuality which does the trick.’
Just don’t inhale
How much of it’s fashion. There’s a lot of people welcome being diagnosed with an allergy because they consider it makes them interestingly “different”. (It doesn’t. It makes them a fucking bore) And then there’s the ones don’t bother with the diagnosis. I’m guessing the latter outnumber the former.
“As Otto has found, the symptoms disappear completely by the seaside, so the salty sea breeze might well be the cure.”
I was fine until I moved to (the port of) Aberdeen. Disaster! Sea breeze aside, blamed it on their winning ‘City in Bloom’ competition every year. Transferred to Houston office and everything was fine. Next stop London, another disaster (pollution?). 25 years later moved to Dartmoor, amidst acres of moor and farmland, everything now hunky-dory. Who knows?
dearieme…
Increase in allergies, particularly hay-fever, correlates with the increasing number of child vaccines given. Yes, yes, correlation, etc.
But. Vaccines contain adjuvants whose purpose is to overstimulate the immune system to react more quickly to the vaccine agent to boost its effect. Allergies are the result of an exaggerated immune response to foreign proteins that normally the immune system ignores having ‘learned’ they are not a danger. Children then are having their immune systems repeatedly overstimulated within a short period of time. Childhood vaccines are given in quick succession – even concurrently, MMR – when the immune system is developing and learning and coming into contact with a variety of environmental elements like pollens, and other plant proteins.
Previous attempts by researchers or doctors to investigate adverse reactions to childhood vaccination programmes, such as autism or allergies, have all been swiftly shut down by Government and professional bodies in cahoots with Big Pharma. (Money.)
It is however the case, that data for England & Wales going back over 100 years, shows dramatic declines in deaths and cases of such things as polio, measles, cholera, typhoid, smallpox, prior to the introduction of vaccines and vaccination programmes.
In recent times there is no data – just propaganda – to show the mRNA ju-ju reduced mortality or hospitalisations, but plenty of data to show they actually increased them commensurate with the number of doses received.
Vaccines are indeed useful in individuals in certain circumstances, but childhood vaccination programmes have been sold to the population under false pretences – as was the CoVid vaccination programme, particularly since vaccinating against a pathogen during an epidemic is contraindicated.
John B
I wonder… I did not develop hayfever until my teens. Did something atmospheric change ? Was it the onset of puberty ?
As to proximity to homosexuals… Well Martina Navratilova started winning Wimbledon, which was usually the peak discomfort time.
I read that the incidence of Autism in the 1960’s and 70’s was 5 in 10,000.
It is now 160 in 10,000.
Better diagnosis? Or something else?
Autism is now a ‘spectrum’ (a favourite ploy of the trick cyclists grifting for more work). I’d bet in the 60s and 70s you would only be diagnosed with autism if you were effectively unable to function in society. Today, anyone who’s a bit shy must have “Asperger’s”. I bet 75% of actuaries would now be classed as ‘on the spectrum’.
I read someqwhere that Oil Seed Rape is often the pollen source that triggers hay-fever, and it’s a relatively modern crop.
So the huge increase in area devoted to growing it may be relevant.
“Allergies are the result of an exaggerated immune response to foreign proteins that normally the immune system ignores having ‘learned’ they are not a danger.”
Wasn’t there some evidence that for the mRNA vaccines repeated shots were triggering this response
BniC, no. As much as the Tinfoil Hatters want there to be one…. No.
@ChrisM Yes, it’s a spectrum now, and while it has been appropriated by the long-fingered subsidy whores, the scientific base for it, including genetics, is solid.
“Everybody is On The Spectrum” is true as well, given that you’re talking about some 30-plus behavioral markers, with each their own lovely little bell curve distribution, that everybody posesses.
It’s just that some of us have combo’s that… can make Life a challenge..
And some are truly fvcked because they drew the short straw several times over.
The whole money-grubbing aside, the autism spectrum is of extreme scientific interest, because there’s enough data now to show the traits are clearly heritable, so the root cause must be genetic.
Actually finding the genes will be a job-and-a-half though, given that they’re buried deep in the “Build a Human” collection that’s active only briefly and then gets shut down, hard, and becomes part of the collection of “junk DNA” ( which mostly isn’t junk at all…).
But the markers of the spectrum are the closest leads we have on how our brain is actually built and how it really functions, so there’s slow but steady progress in research going on.
Well, by definition, 100% of people are on any spectrum, that’s what “spectrum” means. Even if you’re at zero or 100% or whatever the “normal” point is, it’s still *on* the spectrum, it’s on the zero point (or whatever) of the spectrum. It’s like saying that things at 0 degrees don’t have a temperature.
I have read a couple of convincing articles arguing that allergies and other autoimmune diseases are caused by our immune systems needing something to do. As pointed out above, in the past it was always working on something but as we’ve eliminated so many ailments it’s now looking for something to do, so the argument goes. The hypothesis is that it needs exercising like other parts of the body and in some people that exercise means getting over active over some minor ailments.
re-test
@Paul, Somerset: ’…so it might indeed be be proximity to homosexuality which does the trick.’
Just don’t inhale
Don’t you mean swallow?
Just to lower the tone…
try again…
Grikath
“tinfoil hatters”
You say “no” evidence (in response to BniC) but there has been evidence, ie of anti-body class switching – an enhanced IgG4 response versus IgG3 after repeated mRNA vaccination in some people.
I suspect it may have been the link that got my earlier reply zapped, but you can easily google it?
Bloke in North Dorset said:
“I have read a couple of convincing articles arguing that allergies and other autoimmune diseases are caused by our immune systems needing something to do. As pointed out above, in the past it was always working on something but as we’ve eliminated so many ailments it’s now looking for something to do, so the argument goes.”
Oh, so it’s like anti-racism campaigners in England? One of the least racist societies anywhere and any time, so they have to find increasingly petty things to complain about?
@ Chris Miller
It depends who is classifying us and why (as well as when). In the 70s there were comments that half the Oxbridge dons had Aspergers (completely OTT – Aspergers was definitely an advantage for an academic researcher but, despite that, the incidence was nearer 0% than 50% and probably <10%). People who want to "make a point" frequently exaggerate.
When is certainly a (?the) major factor: I was never (to my knowledge) accused of being "on the spectrum" in the 60s or 70s but have been this century.
@ Grikath
The subject truly is of extreme scientific interest because there are postulates that the neuro-diverse were the source of most inventions/discoveries from the stone age until the Renaissance …