According to Professor Michel, the Covid would have only reinforced this trend: “We protected ourselves from the coronavirus, we took hygiene measures never adopted before, we wore masks, we limited social contacts, we even confined ourselves, but this had a perverse effect: it accelerated allergies. It’s not easy to admit but the more you protect yourself, the more you risk developing an allergy.”
But if our way of life marked by a growing concern for hygiene tends to promote the appearance of allergies, we should not forget that this way of life has protected us from a lot of diseases. And Professor Michel is the first to recognize it: “The radical change in our way of life and its hygienist concern have made it possible to eliminate, or in any case to greatly reduce neo and perinatal mortality. We got rid of cholera, measles hardly kills any more in Belgium. is obviously progress, but it has a downside: allergies.”
These modern diseases are affecting more and more people, but “in exchange, our life expectancy has increased by 25 years and our quality of life has greatly improved. Between dying of the plague and suffering from hay fever, the choice is quickly made. A few years ago, a medical journal aptly titled ‘The allergy epidemic is the price to pay for our longevity and for our social well-being.’ “