In 1906 Wolff-Eisner suggested that human hypersensitiveness, as seen in hay fever, was related to the phenomenon of anaphylaxis in animals. Meltzer (1910) pointed out the similarity between the bronchial constriction in asthma and that seen in guinea-pigs dying of anaphylactic shock. He concluded that true bronchial asthma was anaphylactic in origin. After these observations all the clinical m...

BACKGROUND The presence of older siblings reduces the risk of developing hay fever, eczema and atopy, but findings for asthma have been inconsistent. Whether twins have a reduced risk of allergic disease is also unclear. We have investigated these questions in a birth cohort analysis of the West Midlands General Practice Research Database (GPRD). METHODS Our birth cohort included 29,238 child...

We aimed to systematically evaluate the association between allergic conditions and the risk of Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) and non-HL (NHL). Systematic literature searches in PubMed and Embase were conducted up to October 2015 to identify eligible studies. Either a fixed-effects model or a random-effects model was adopted to estimate overall odds ratios (ORs) according to heterogeneity across stud...

BACKGROUND Few studies present prospective data on the incidence of asthma. Its associations with sex and with prior and concurrent hay fever and eczema were examined in a nationally representative sample followed from birth to 23 years of age (British 1958 birth cohort). METHODS Reports of asthma or wheezy bronchitis, hay fever and eczema were obtained by interview of parents of children at ...

BACKGROUND Maternal sex hormones in pregnancy can theoretically influence the developing fetal immune system and modulate the subsequent development of atopic disorders. Early onset of menarche has been linked to increased oestrogen levels in adult women. A study was undertaken to examine the association between early onset menarche in pregnant women and asthma and atopic status of their childr...