Nursery World - New research shows that allergies are gender related

Children's risk of developing an allergy is doubled if a parent of the same sex suffered from it, a new study has found.

Childhood allergies such as asthma and eczema are gender related, research published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology has confirmed.

The groundbreaking study found that maternal eczema doubled the risk of eczema in girls only, whereas paternal eczema did the same for boys. Similarly, maternal asthma is associated with increased risk of asthma only in girls, whereas paternal asthma is linked to asthma in boys.

Previous studies have revealed that allergies are hereditary, but believed that they were passed down from the mother.

Prof Hasan Arshad, a professor of Allergy and Clinical Immunology at the University of Southampton, who led the research, said, ‘If the father has an allergy, that increases the risk to twice or three times for the son, but not the daughter. She would still develop an allergy, but the risk is not increased; it’s the same as the general population.’

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