What is on your skin, that it can tell a person with a nut allergy that a nut is touching them and they should “save” their life by almost killing them.
In: Biology
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Skin – and every part of our body, really – has a very large number of *receptors*. Parts of our cells that physically and/or chemically interact with “stuff”.
For nut allergies, these are generally protein receptors. They “match” a specific protein, like puzzle pieces fitting together. That happens to be a protein that nuts have.
When the receptors feel that they’ve matched something, they send a signal to the rest of the body. In people with allergies, that signal happens to trigger the immune response that results in an allergic attack.
There are a lot of these protein receptors in some parts of the body, and fewer in other parts. Skin contact is relatively less likely to trigger an allergy for nut allergies – we have fewer protein receptors on our skin. But we still have some, which *can* be “enough” to trigger the allergy.
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