Scientists at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have used advanced light microscopy to show that a substance can be differently absorbed by the skin, depending on what it is mixed with. This may determine whether it causes contact allergy or not.

"We have also been able to identify specific cells and proteins in the skin with which a contact allergen interacts. The results increase our understanding of the mechanisms behind contact allergy", says Carl Simonsson at the Department of Chemistry, University of Gothenburg.

Scientists have discovered a missing link between the body's biological clock and sugar metabolism system, a finding that may help avoid the serious side effects of drugs used for treating asthma, allergies and arthritis.

In a paper published last week in Nature, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies report finding that proteins that control the body's biological rhythms, known as cryptochromes, also interact with metabolic switches that are targeted by certain anti-inflammatory drugs.

High diversity and a variety of bacteria in the gut protect children against allergies as opposed to some individual bacterial genera. These are the findings of a comprehensive study of intestinal microflora (gut flora) in allergic and healthy children, which was conducted at Linköping University in Sweden.

One hypothesis is that our immune system encounters too few bacteria during childhood, which explains the increasing proportion of allergic children. However it has been difficult to substantiate the hypothesis scientifically.

Asthma-Related Hospital Readmissions 50 Percent Greater in Single-Parent Households.- Financial strain and competing priorities at home may contribute to greater number of hospital readmissions of children with asthma from single-parent homes compared to dual-parent households, according to a new study presented at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology Annual Meeting in Boston, Nov. 3-8.

If infants encounter a wide range of bacteria they are less at risk of developing allergic disease later in life. This is the conclusion of research from the University of Copenhagen, which suggests completely new factors in many modern lifestyle diseases.

Oversensitivity diseases, or allergies, now affect 25 per cent of the population of Denmark. The figure has been on the increase in recent decades and now researchers at the Dansk BørneAstma Center [COPSAC, Copenhagen Prospective Studies on Asthma in Childhood], University of Copenhagen, are at last able to partly explain the reasons.

A study published online Oct. 18 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute provides some new but qualified support for the idea that the immune system's response to allergies may reduce the risk of developing deadly brain tumors.

People with somewhat elevated blood levels of immunoglobulin E (IgE), antibodies that carry out the body's immune response to allergens, were significantly less likely to develop gliomas, and those who did survived somewhat longer, than those with clinically normal IgE levels, according to the study by a team of researchers at Brown University and several other institutions in the United States and Europe.

Today, about one in four European children suffer from allergy, which makes this disease the non-infectious epidemic of the 21st century. Evidence suggests that lifestyle factors and nutritional patterns, such as breastfeeding, help to reduce the early symptoms of allergy.

Nose feel congested and stuffed up? Scientists from the Monell Center report that the annoying feeling of nasal obstruction is related to the temperature and humidity of inhaled air. The findings suggest that sensory feedback from nasal airflow contributes to the sensation of congestion. This knowledge may help researchers design and test more effective treatments for this familiar symptom of nasal sinus disease.

Eating low-fat yoghurt whilst pregnant can increase the risk of your child developing asthma and allergic rhinitis (hay fever), according to recent findings.

The study will be presented at the European Respiratory Society's (ERS) Annual Congress in Amsterdam on 25 September 2011. All the abstracts for the ERS Congress are publicly available online.

The study aimed to assess whether fatty acids found in dairy products could protect against the development of allergic diseases in children.

The researchers assessed milk and dairy intake during pregnancy and monitored the prevalence of asthma and allergic rhinitis using registries and questionnaires in the Danish National Birth Cohort.

Itchy eyes, sneezing, coughing and congestion -- these are just some of the symptoms that millions of people with allergies have to deal with every day, all from allergens being inhaled through the nasal passages. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control, nearly one in three Americans suffer from sinus related symptoms, and that number continues to grow.