The next time you sneeze at cat dander or suffer through a yearly dose of hay fever, you might want to thank your immune system: scientists have discovered that people with allergies are less likely to contract brain tumors. For the study, published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, researchers surveyed patients with glioma, a common type of brain and spinal tumor. As Science News reports:
Several teams had previously explored the link between allergies and glioma, says UIC epidemiologist Bridget McCarthy, who led the study. Her team set out to confirm these results, cobbling together a wide list of variables. The researchers quizzed about 1,000 hospital patients with or without cancer about their allergy histories. Of the 344 patients with high-grade glioma, about 35 percent reported having been diagnosed with one or more allergies in their lifetimes, compared with about 46 percent of the 612 cancer-free respondents. ...
