Are you one of the chosen few who do not suffer from allergies or asthma? Consider yourself quite blessed.

Have you noticed how allergies and asthma seem more pervasive, and severe, than ever? You’re not alone.

Allergic: Our Irritated Bodies in a Changing World is a well-researched exploration into allergies.

The author seems to suffer allergies herself, and she is haunted by the death of her father by an anaphylactic response to a bee sting. She goes about researching and interviewing scientists and others on the cutting edge of exploring allergies and all they are about.

What she has to say is quite disturbing on many levels.

The basic idea behind allergies has been known for about a century. The “immune system” treats a harmless substance as if it were a significant threat to the body, and various systems are activated in order to combat the “threat.” At best, one experiences discomfort, congestion, and inflammation; at worst, the body goes into anaphylactic shock and dies.

How we determine if people have allergies has not changed much for a century. She exposes how skin tests are notoriously unreliable: many times a person will show skin evidence of a food allergy, but the body does not otherwise currently react to that food, or perhaps might start doing so in the future but not the present. This is not a denial of food allergies; it’s just that skin tests do not well reflect what food allergies a person experiences. Blood tests can do somewhat better but will not gauge the severity of the allergy. The author learns that she has no skin or blood markers for allergies, and yet she experiences the symptoms of allergies in certain circumstances.

All of this goes to show how little we really know and understand about allergy and how it works. It is getting worse; there is more pollen in the air, pollutants exacerbate our likelihood of coming down with allergies and asthma, and our indoor-centric lifestyles are not helping out, either.

And then there’s the challenge of medical care for allergies and asthma: the promise of certain medicines, but the significant cost involved.

As one with environmental and food allergies and asthma I appreciated all the research that went into this book and the presentation of all the evidence. Hopefully scientists will figure some of these things out. Or, better yet, we stop polluting our environment so much and maybe we won’t be as allergic to it. ( )

The description often posted with Theresa MacPhail's Allergic ends with: "This is the story of allergies: what they are, why we have them, and what that might mean about the fate of humanity in a rapidly changing world." This seems to me a very appropriate summary of what this book covers—and covers very well.

MacPhail draws on extensive input from past medical publications, studies, and interviews with current medical, other specialists and patients, weaving a very readable collection of stories into a history of many aspects of allergies in humans. From the various types of allergies, to the medical tests to detect and identify them, to management and treatment options; how they've all evolved over time, how they all fell (and continue to fall) short, some promising recent developments, and how frustratingly elusive a true understanding of allergies continues to be.

This story is necessarily incomplete, as a full understanding of allergies and how to cure them is still nowhere in sight, but it is quite a story, sure to engage those interested in the human immune system and the ways in which it can go haywire on us, and perhaps useful background to those navigating the experience itself.

Note that this is not (and does not claim to be) a guide to treating and living better with allergies. This is a history of human understanding of allergy conditions, a "biography of allergies" as a quote on the cover puts it. So don't expect the former and then knock it for failing to deliver what it isn't. For what it is, it delivers quite well. ( )