Cross-Sensitivities and Allergy Prevention

Do you have allergies that just won't go away? Do the sniffles you get from blooming plants in the spring run into the summer? Does your summer pollen sensitivity last into fall and winter? If never-ending sneezing, wheezing, blood-shot and teary eyes describes you, you may be suffering allergic cross-sensitivity.

Allergy is the immune system's over-reaction to specific proteins found on the surface of living or once-living tissues. We think of our susceptibilities in terms of plants or animals, such as ragweed or mites or grasses, but our immune systems only look for the protein trigger. Allergic sensitivity to entirely unrelated species of plants and animals is known as cross-sensitivity.

It's easy to find examples, For instance, if you react to latex, and you tend to get hay fever in the spring, you are likely to be allergic to:

• Apples,

• Apricots,

• Celery,

• Nectarines,

• Peaches,

• Pears,

• Plums, and

• Rose hip vitamin C.

Why does that matter? If you get a reaction to latex, then even if your runny nose and itchy, red, irritated eyes are triggered by grass pollen, you can reduce your symptoms by avoiding or eliminating apples, apricots, celery, nectarines, peaches, pears, plums, and rose hip vitamin C.

What if you if you break out or sneeze when you put on latex gloves, but you don't have hay fever? Then chances are you are allergic to:

• Avocados,

• Bananas,

• Kiwis,

• Melons (or the mold on melons) and

• Peaches

That means when you get your yearly bout with pollen-related symptoms, you can get better by reducing your consumption of these foods.

Other cross-sensitivities include

• Aspirin and curry powder, dill, licorice, oregano, paprika, peppermint, prunes, raisins, and turmeric.

• The preservatives BHA and BHT and fish or shrimp.

• Penicillin and non-organic dairy products (because of the widespread use of penicillin and related antibiotics in dairy farming).

So when nothing seems to help your allergic condition, consider cross-sensitivities. Eliminating the foods and preservatives to which you are "just a little allergic" may just what your body needs to get control over symptoms.