More than 1500 babies are being sought for a research study testing whether a whooping cough vaccine can help prevent allergies in early childhood in Australia. The OPTIMUM Study, conducted at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI), the Telethon Kids Institute and The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, is recruiting infants aged 6-12 weeks from Melbourne, Perth and Sydney, respectively. All […]
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Anaphylaxis and adrenaline auto-injectors: Anaphylaxis is an extremely severe allergic reaction. Reactions usually begin within minutes and progress rapidly, however, they can occur up to 2-3 hours after exposure. Exercise can also initiate symptoms a while after exposure to an allergen. Common allergens include food and insect stings. In the UK, 5–8% of children have […]
Ah, spring. Grass growing, flowers blooming, trees budding. For those with allergies, though, this explosion of new life probably inspires more dread than joy. So what’s behind this annual onslaught of mucus? Eleanor Nelsen explains what happens when your immune system goes rogue. […]
It is commonly thought that hay fever and tree pollen allergies are only a problem in late Spring or the summer months, when the sun is shining, and people are out and about in the great outdoors more. That is far from the case, however, so read on to find out what you need to […]
Adults who have never had allergies can suddenly develop asthma, eczema of food allergies long after they have left childhood behind. ‘Although most people develop allergies when they are children, a small number can find themselves sensitized to allergens like pollen, foods or house dust mites when their immune systems have already fully matured,’ explains […]
Immunotherapy, which was first trialled on hay fever patients in London in 1911, has an excellent record in helping reduce allergy symptoms. But how long it works after treatment stops seems to depend of how long patients receive the therapy, which involves increasing exposure to grass pollen over time. This is the conclusion of researchers at […]
Parents were once encouraged by health experts to avoid giving their weaned babies certain ‘high risk’ foods to reduce the risk of their offspring developing potentially life-threatening food allergies. Many parents in the US in the 1980s and 1990s, advised by the American Academy of Paediatrics avoided giving babies cow’s milk for a year after birth, eggs […]
Allergic disease accounts for 10 per cent of the GP prescribing budget and the incidence of asthma has reached epidemic proportions. So what lies behind the epidemic? Allergies do tend to run in families, but this cannot be the explanation for why there has been such a huge surge in the number of sufferers. Doctors now believe that our environment, […]
Peanut allergy affects around one in 30 children (that’s one child in each school class). We think that the rates of peanut allergy have probably stabilised – which means that while it shouldn’t become more common, there are still plenty people out there with peanut allergy, and a real need to help those children and their families affected. One recent […]
Now the hay fever season is upon us, millions of people will be coughing and sneezing and wiping their eyes. Around 25 per cent of sufferers can blame birch pollen. These beautiful trees release their pollen in March and early April, depending where you are in the UK and the weather. Grass pollen misery comes […]