-
Allergies in Young Children: Effects of Exposure to Multiple Air Pollutants During Prenatal and Early Life
By Roberta Attanasio The frequency of allergies in children keeps rising rapidly worldwide, but it’s not clear why. However, it is acknowledged that developing even one type of allergy early in life is almost like turning on a switch—it can start children on a path to more. “The progression of skin allergies to asthma and allergic rhinitis is called the allergic or atopic march. Atopic dermatitis is an itchy, inflammatory skin allergy that, before 1960, affected fewer than 3% of children; by the 2000s it had increased to around 20%. A child with atopic dermatitis is more likely to develop other allergic conditions or symptoms. For example, about 70% of…
-
Environmental Toxins and Damage to the Immune System: Transgenerational Effects
By Roberta Attanasio A few decades ago, the hypothesis of the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD), also called “Barker’s hypothesis,” stimulated interest in the fetal origins of adult disorders—as soon as it was formulated. Subsequent research by Mohan Manikkam and Michael Skinner helped establish the principle of transgenerational toxicity by showing that the effects of toxic chemicals can extend even to the third generation of offspring. Indeed, it is now clear that early life development is a critical and unique window of vulnerability during which environmental exposures influence cellular programming in ways that shape health and disease later in life. While most research on the transgenerational effects of…