During allergy season, sufferers know the drill: runny nose, watery eyes, sneezing up a storm. For the unlucky with asthma, symptoms might also include coughing and wheezing. However, asthma is not always caused by allergens like pollen and dust—nonallergenic asthma is brought on by a number of possible environmental or genetic triggers. Then there’s the common cold, which also presents with similar symptoms. So what’s causing your runny nose?
In Allergies, Asthma, and the Common Cold, we review what we know about these three conditions as well as take a look at food allergies and what’s on the horizon for allergy treatment and prevention. We begin with what causes allergies, in which Steve Mirsky interviews Johns Hopkins School of Medicine researcher Kathleen Barnes on the science behind the hygiene hypothesis, which suggests that early exposure to bacteria and viruses leads to a stronger immune system and a reduced likelihood of developing allergies later in life. Next we tackle asthma, which is reaching epidemic proportions in some parts of the world. Then we discuss interventions for food allergies specifically, including genetically modified foods and immunotherapy. And finally, we look into allergies in general, and how the fine-tuned “human microbiome” may be protecting us more than we know.
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Coleen Marlo is an accomplished actor and multi-award-winning audiobook voice artist and producer. In 2010 she was named Audiobook Narrator of the Year by Publishers Weekly, and she won the Audie Award for Literary Fiction in 2011. During her distinguished career, she has been nominated twice for Audie Awards by the Audio Publishers Association, has won numerous Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Awards, and has been an AudioFile Earphones Award winner. Additionally, she has been honored with many starred audio reviews by Library Journal and Publishers Weekly. Coleen is a member of the prestigious Actors Studio and taught acting for ten years at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. Furthermore, she is a proud founding member of Deyan Institute of Voice Artistry and Technology. Coleen can be found on the Web at coleenmarlo.blogspot.com and on Facebook at ColeenMarloAudiobook.