Allergies

Allergies are immune overreactions to normally harmless substances, mediated by histamine, serotonin, and other inflammatory signals released from mast cells. Ray Peat's writing points at food quality itself as an overlooked driver behind rising rates, not just changes in people's immune systems.

A food-supply explanation, not just a "people" explanation

Peat opened his article on milk and allergies by naming the theories that get attention, then the one that doesn't:

Food allergies are becoming much more common in recent decades, especially in industrialized countries. Most attention has been given to theories about changes in people, such as the reduction in infectious diseases and parasites, or vitamin D deficiency, or harmful effects from vaccinations, and little attention has been given to degradation of the food supply.

— Ray Peat

The PUFA and hormone link

Peat tied allergic reactivity to PUFA intake directly: PUFA raises histamine and other metabolites that harm immune regulation, and estrogen and parathyroid hormone both trigger mast cells to release histamine and serotonin, the same inflammatory mediators covered on Asthma. Fructose, by contrast, was noted to reduce mast cell histamine release and protect against oxidative and hypoxic injury.

Nasal congestion

In an email exchange, Peat described a stuffed nose as an allergic reaction that a food or supplement trace can trigger, with the reaction's length set by how long that item takes to pass through the gut:

Even traces of allergens in foods or supplements can do that [congestion/stuffed up nose], and depending on the intestinal transit time, a single dose of an allergen can keep producing congestion for days.

— Ray Peat

Practice

Lowering PUFA intake and supporting food quality (rather than assuming allergies are purely an immune-system or genetic problem) fit this framework's general approach. See Histamine, PUFA, Mast cells.

See also

• Histamine
• PUFA
• Mast cells
• Asthma
• Anaphylaxis