Sunday, November 24, 2002		Lead Article

Keep allergies at bay
H. K. Kharbanda

IT has become a part of your life — those recurring sniffles. Cold medications haven’t worked, nor have grandma’s age-old remedies. You worry about the crucial presentation you have to do the next morning and try to wave the cold away with a quick-fix capsule. At times such conditions could be due to an allergy. The skin, eyes, nose, throat, lungs, gastrointestinal tract, almost every organ of body is prone to allergy. The immune system that is supposed to protect, sometimes over-reacts, causing you to be allergic. One-fifth of world’s population and 20 crore people in India, are affected by this condition. Commonly triggered by genetic factors, allergies are easily controllable, simply by observing what makes them occur. Why, even a condition like asthma is an allergy, but can nevertheless by controlled.

But if cold persists, it is time to seek medical advice. A simple indication of an allergy is that sneezing or itching keeps recurring. Often a recurring inflammation or swelling of the nose is called shinitis, is also caused by an allergy and it is easy to observe some definite triggering factors.

Even house dust can cause an allergy, be it a breathing problem or skin rash. More and more eye allergies being observed in urban areas occur because pollution and smoke are the main causes. Allergies are usually recurring and people are commonly allergic to milk, milk products, chocolates, nuts, tinned products containing preservatives.