People with allergies are distributed evenly throughout the United States, though the condition is not distributed evenly according to race and socio economic status; allergens also do not equally affect regions, based on a recent study reported by the New York Times.
Researchers tested the blood of over 8,000 people throughout the United States for immunoglobulin E antibodies, or IgEs, which typically indicate the presence of allergies. After determining that the distribution of IgEs was spread evenly across the country (45 percent of people over 6 had the antibodies; 36 percent under 6 them), they analyzed the information further for individual differences.
Non-Hispanic blacks were more sensitive to every allergy besides Russian thistle and eggs. Lower socio-economic individuals demonstrated greater sensitive to cockroaches and shrimp, which seems like an especially cruel range.
Regionally, sensitive to grass and ragweed was highest in the west, while susceptibility to mold was more likely in the east. Overall, indoor allergies were more severe in the east. Many common allergens, however, weren't regionally specific such as peanut, shrimp, egg, dog, cat, rat and mouse sensitivities.
There were also age differences: Adults were most prone to dust mites, grass and ragweed, with dogs and cats a near second. For children, milk and eggs were the biggest issues.
"The biggest surprise is that the level of sensitivities didn't differ region to region," lead author Dr. Darryl C. Zeldin, a scientific director at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, told the New York Times. "This goes completely against what most people would have said."
The biggest gain from the study might be the finding that allergies to one item sometimes corresponded to an allergy to another, such as grass and tree pollen, and peanuts and plants. Thus, identifying one may help identify the other.
