Allergy is a disease of the immune system, featured by excessive reactions made by certain ANTIBODIES (Reagins or IgE) towards substances normally innocuous, like the pollen.

This disease is SPECIFIC, being caused by a certain type of antibodies and it appears only in presence of the substance to which the antibody is directed.
Even very little amounts of such substances are enough to unchain the allergic reaction.

Substances of the same kind (for ex., pollens) but of different molecular structure (for ex., pollens of 2 different families) generate different allergies, so that a patient with an allergy for a certain pollen have no symptoms if exposed to pollens of other families.

The speed of an allergic reaction is immediate and the first symptoms appear after 5-15 minutes after the contact with the allergizing substance.

The generic predisposition to allergy is hereditary, but it's not the allergy to a specific substance to be inherited.
So a person allergic to pollen can have sons with allergy to animal fur and nephews allergic to ticks and so on.

The factors favouring the occurrence of an allergy are many:
- atmospheric pollution (diesel particles)
- viral infections in the first childhood
- recurrent use of antibiotics, again in the childhood
- the artificial breast-feeding
- generally, many medical drugs and synthetic food additives.
What is today well known is that those factors cannot start an allergy if the patient hasn't a genetic predisposition.

A recent theory points out that children who follow an excessive hygiene are very easy to develop an allergy.
In fact, it has been shown that an excessively "sterilized" environment, due to the excessive cleaning care of parents, is not healthy for the baby's immune system that shows to be more weak against allergies development.
As a confirmation of this hypothesis, it has been observed that the children who live in the countryside or have a cat in their house (showed in the fist two years of their life) are less likely to develop an allergy.

SYMPTOMS.
- NOSE: swelling of the mucosa, sneezes and liquid losses.
- EYES: irritation of the conjunctiva (allergic conjunctivitis), nearly always coupled with allergic rhinitis
- INFERIOR AERIAL DUCTS: irritation, bronco-constriction, asthma attacks
- SKIN: allergic dermatitis, like eczema, neurodermitis, and contact dermatitis.

The allergic response is called ANAPHYILAXIS and it can have various severity levels, from skin reactions

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