It’s the season for the sneezin’ and if you notice youngsters and adolescents sniffling around the house permanently hanging on to the tissue boxes, then you know the allergies are acting up. But before you react instinctively and get out the antihistamines, consider this news item from Yahoo News: Teenagers and adolescents who are obese have an increased risk of getting allergies.
This was found to be especially the case for food-based allergies:
The study authors analyzed data from 4,111 participants, aged 2 to 19, who took part in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, and found that obese children and teens were 26 percent more likely to have any kind of allergy, and 59 percent more likely to have a food allergy, than their normal-weight peers. [Yahoo News]
While the authors of the study note the association between obesity and risk of allergies, they do concede that there is probably no causal relationship between the two. In other words, it cannotbe shown that obesity caused the incidence of allergies in the first place.
Keeping fit in this early summer season is one sure-fire way to escape the nasty clutches of a bad seasonal allergy atack!
