Believe it or not, there’s actually an upside to allergy season

Nothing will ruin your day quite like being stuffed up, sneezing, headachy, and feeling kind of out of it because your allergies are going crazy. But you might take some small satisfaction in knowing that there appears to be a pretty significant upside to seasonal allergies.

It’s all about immunoglobulin E antibodies (IgE). Apparently you’ve got lots of them if you’ve got allergies, because your body produces IgE as an immune response when allergens are detected.

New research from Brown University shows that allergy patients with elevated blood levels of IgE were much less likely to develop glioma brain tumors compared to people without allergies.

Nice.

But there’s a catch…

Allergy patients with the highest IgE levels didn’t seem to have this protection against glioma — only those with a moderate antibody response.

For researchers, this result (which confirms results of previous studies) offers a possible key to future treatments of glioma — a particularly deadly cancer.

And if you’re a glass-half-full type of allergy patient, then you’ve at least got one bright side to a stuffed up, sneezing, headachy day.

Sources:
“Allergies may help in fighting brain tumors” Brown University press release, 10/17/11, news.brown.edu