Jones Meinir G
Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Imperial College London, London, UK.
Methods Mol Biol. 2019;2020:1-15. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-9591-2_1.
The prevalence of allergic disease has dramatically increased over the past 30 years in Westernized countries. It is unlikely that the rapid increase in the prevalence of allergic disease is the result of genetic changes, which highlights the importance of environmental factors in the development of allergic disease. The "hygiene hypothesis" was put forward in 1989 and focused attention on the notion that exposure to microbes and their products in early life can modify the risk for development of allergic disease. Infections were thought to polarize the immunological response toward a Th2-mediated immune response causing allergic disease. However, it is likely that the Th1/Th2 imbalance is too simplistic to explain the increased prevalence of allergic disease. Current research is focusing on understanding the role of T-regulatory cells in inducing a state of tolerance and the resulting modified Th2 response observed in natural and induced tolerance.
在过去30年里，西方国家过敏性疾病的患病率急剧上升。过敏性疾病患病率的快速上升不太可能是基因变化的结果，这凸显了环境因素在过敏性疾病发展中的重要性。“卫生假说”于1989年提出，它将人们的注意力集中在这样一个概念上，即早年接触微生物及其产物会改变患过敏性疾病的风险。感染被认为会使免疫反应偏向于由Th2介导的导致过敏性疾病的免疫反应。然而，Th1/Th2失衡可能过于简单，无法解释过敏性疾病患病率的上升。目前的研究重点是了解调节性T细胞在诱导耐受状态中的作用，以及在自然耐受和诱导耐受中观察到的由此产生的Th2反应的改变。
