[ELI5] Why can we gain resistances to medicine, alcohol, poison, etc. but not so much for allergies or pollutants?

Question

[ELI5] Why can we gain resistances to medicine, alcohol, poison, etc. but not so much for allergies or pollutants?

In: 1276

Answer 1

Because there’s a completely different mechanism behind them.

Your body gains resistance to certain medicine and other substances by learning to break them down quicker or decreasing the amount of cell receptors that bind them. These are usually small molecules that don’t have immunogenic potential.

An allergy is an immune reaction which is a much more complicated mechanism. The immune system can only respond to larger molecules like proteins and sometimes it does that inadequately, which is what an allergy is. Because it thinks the allergen is dangerous, it strengthens its reaction to it every time it comes across it.

It’s a bit more complicated than that because oral allergen therapy CAN decrease your allergy. The immune system is incredibly complex and still far from fully understood but this is the basic concept.