I know allergies are really common, but I don’t quite understand what’s so bad about pollen, peanuts, etc. that you body would rather shut down your airways entirely than let them enter. What exactly would happen if they did get in?
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An allergy is an immune system response to a non threat. It’s an error. There is nothing bad about what it is reacting to, it’s just reacting to it as if it is.
Scientists theorise that they happen because the immune system over a long time of evolution has been selected to slightly overreact than underreact. This is because underreacting in the past would have resulted in death and death is bad. It does though mean that in some people it’ll overreact so much that it will kill them. However, in most people it’s just a slight annoyance. Being slightly annoyed doesn’t prevent you from breeding and so it won.
Remember, evolution isn’t about perfection, it’s about good enough with what it has to work with.
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