Thursday, April 12, 2018

Food Allergy is Linked to Skin Exposure and Genetics

This article focuses on the physical and genetic factors that have been discovered to have a large role in causing food allergies in infants and children. The physical factors include: The use of baby wipes that leave behind large amounts of soap-residue, exposure to allergens that are found in dust, and exposure to food particles coming from caregivers. The genetic side lies in genes that may alter skin absorbency. When these physical factors occur in the presence of a child that also expresses the skin absorbency-altering gene, a "perfect storm" is created that can trigger food allergies. Animal studies were carried out using mice to confirm this very interesting discovery.

In today's world it seems as though more and more children (and adults) are discovered to have food allergies and in many cases these allergies are very dangerous and have altered school policy. I think this research seems valid and very vital because of these factors. As someone who is studying to be a teacher and has worked as a substitute teacher, children's allergies have become something handled with strong caution, and anything we can do to prevent those allergies is huge as we push into the future.

Link: https://news.northwestern.edu/index.php/stories/2018/april/food-allergy-is-linked-to-skin-exposure-and-genetics/

Additional link: https://www.sciencealert.com/dust-food-and-baby-wipes-linked-to-infant-allergies

1 comment:

  1. I read an article just like this one. I found it very interesting that the babies were getting allergies from things such as baby wipe soap residue.

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