the.com/allergen
A harmless substance your immune system mistakes for a mortal enemy, loudly.
means A substance — pollen, peanuts, pet dander, whatever — that triggers an allergic reaction in some people, even though it's biologically harmless.
from Coined in the early 1900s as a tidy fusion of 'allergy' and the suffix '-gen' (meaning 'producer of,' as in 'pathogen'). 'Allergy' itself was assembled from Greek 'allos' ('other, different') and 'ergon' ('work, activity') by an Austrian pediatrician in 1906, describing the immune system's altered, overreactive response. 'Allergen' followed soon after as the obvious label for whatever sets that reaction off — the thing doing the provoking, not the provoked.
- top offender
- peanuts cause most fatal food reactions
- overreaction
- immune system attacks pollen like a virus
- hygiene link
- too-clean childhoods may raise allergy risk
- label rule
- US mandates disclosure of 9 major allergens