Originally Posted by
Elisabrat
wait Anastasia our neighborhood bookworm, Kelly! our other grand bookworm are allergies on the uprise over the last century?
This is my best logical guess at 9:24 am (I woke up at 9:07 am):
There probably are a greater number of allergies because there are a greater number of "things" to induce them. Technologies have created all sorts of stuff - latex, polymers, chemicals, etc - that didn't exist 100 years ago. Look at the back of any food container (non-organic, non-homemade) and you'll see a laundry list of chemicals, additives, and other weirdness that you're putting into your body. I suppose I can't promise but I feel pretty confident that these are all creations from this century.
And then, think about the products purported to be the end-all, be-all products such as pharmaceuticals, cleaning agents, and product stabilizers that later show to be carcinogens and toxins. I'm sure that we haven't figured them all out yet; every time you are exposed to that ingredient or product, your body is building up a little bit more of a sensitivity (kind of like people who were not latex-sensitive as a child and die of anaphalaxys-reaction as a grown up) and that is assuming that the cancer resulting from the product use doesn't get you first!
So, I think the (short) answer is "yes, there are more allergies/allergens now than 100 years ago."