are allergies hereditary
Just wanted to give you my family background. I had asthma as a child, my husband has now developed asthma and hayfever, my mother and brother have eczema, my niece has eczema and hayfever, my 22 year old daughter has hayfever, my 6 yr old daughter is so far allergy free, and my son has pa and eczema. If both twins were to share a particular allergy, than this may prove that allergies are genetic. To completely understand the remainder of this essay, one must understand the difference between identical twins and fraternal twins. Twin zygosity is the genetic relationship of twins. All of these studies have tested for the same thing, whether or not allergies are genetic. The results are not exact, but one thing is in common: allergies among identical twins, who have identical DNA strands, are shared more often than among fraternal twins, who have only one strand of DNA in common. Like Christine, I have an 8 year old daughter with no allergies at all (that we are aware of) and my son, age 5, is allergic to peanuts, eggs, dust mites, has allergic rhinitis (hayfever), previously had eczema, and outgrew his milk allergy. Not exactly. If you have allergies, that doesn’t mean your child will for sure have them. But there is a 50-50 shot. If your spouse is also allergic, your kids’ odds go up to 75%. Still, experts think other factors come into play, like your environment, air pollution, respiratory infections -- even diet and emotions. The tendency to develop allergies is often hereditary, which means it can be passed down through genes from parents to their kids. But just because you, your partner, or one of your children might have allergies doesn't mean that all of your kids will definitely get them, too. Peanut allergies, which affect some 0.6% of the U.S. population, are seldom outgrown and may be triggered by even the slightest exposure. Managing these allergies is made more difficult by the fact that peanut-based food products are often difficult to recognize. Sixty-five percent of the identical twins shared an allergy to peanuts, versus only 7% of the fraternal twins -- the same rate found among siblings who are not twins. Sicherer tells WebMD that the 7% rate is still 14 times higher than the risk of peanut allergy in the general population.. Some of the most common things people are allergic to are airborne (carried through the air): 1  Dust mites are one of the most common causes of allergies. 2  Pollen is another major cause of allergies (most people know pollen allergy as hay fever or rose fever). Trees, weeds, and grasses release these tiny particles into the air to fertilize other plants. Pollen allergies are seasonal, and the type of pollen someone is allergic to determines when symptoms happen. Some have suggested that environmental factors or early exposure to certain foods can cause allergies later in life, while others say that allergies are caused by genetics. To test the latter theory, many researchers study identical twins to see if sets of twins share allergies.
Yes, the tendency to develop allergies is often hereditary.