If allergies are basically a pure immune response – no actual pathogen, just your body mistaking something harmless for a pathogen and freaking out – why does getting hayfever have distinct symptoms that most illnesses don’t have? Why does my immune system being set off because of harmless grass seed and pet dander give me itchy eyes and hives, but when it’s set off by a real virus it doesn’t do either of those things? On its face, shouldn’t being sick feel like “all the symptoms you get during an allergic reaction + whatever symptoms are caused by the actual harm the pathogen is doing”?
In: Biology
The best studies have shown in flies that allergies are a “pre-immune” response. Basically your body wants to react to an infection _before_ you get sick. The sooner the better, to increase chances that once you are infected the time to cure is shorter.
They disabled the gene responsible in flies for allergies, they found no allergies, but then a small cold wiped entire populations, while others were just fine.
The mechanism is that you get protein damage, and your body investigates. It has no cameras so it just goes to all nearby things and says “IT WAS FUCKING YOU!” and then decides to build an immunity to it. Turns out air pollution tricks our immune system to thinking that something normal is actually hurting you. Like for example you get some pollen in your nose, and some car exhaust, some protein damage and the immune system says “AHA!!! Must have been the pollen!!!” and boom, allergy.
The way the body reacts is basically the immune system having an instantaneous attack to what it thinks is a bacteria, but it isn’t and the body can’t quite fight it off because the particles are too big, and outside the realm of the immune system’s ability to fight, so the immune system goes nuts and tries to get it, but alas it keeps failing. What you get is inflammation and that’s where the danger comes from. Maybe inflammation near your bronchial tubes, and boom can’t inhale!
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