A recent research has thrown light on childhood allergic diseases. it has been claimed by a team of researchers led by Professor Hasan Arshad,

a consultant in allergy and immunology at Southampton General Hospital, that a child is under the risk of childhood allergic diseases if her or his same sex parent is also affected by the disease. In other words, if mother has it, a girl child is more likely to have the same childhood allergic disease, and vice versa.

Published in the August issue of The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, the study examined data from the Isle of Wight (IOW) Birth Cohort Study, involving information on some 1,500 children who were tracked till the age of 18. It was also claimed that Professor Hasan Arshad was among those who started The IOW cohort study, which was based on studying the relevant genetic and environmental risk factors.

"Similar trends were observed when the effect of maternal and paternal allergic disease was assessed for childhood atopy and when maternal total IgE levels were related to total IgE levels in children at ages 10 and 18 years”, said the authors.

It would be worth interesting to see how this study is able to bring in changes in sex-dependent effects in hereditary diseases in the time to come.