Allergens Aren't Harmless, Dust Mites Damage Your Body Directly

A Widespread Misconception

The idea that allergens are harmless is espoused by prominent and trusted sources, for example:

From Mayo Clinic website:

"Allergies happen when the immune system reacts to a foreign substance that gets inside the body. [...] Allergies occur when the body overreacts to a harmless substance."

From Wikipedia:

"Allergies, also known as allergic diseases, are various conditions caused by hypersensitivity of the immune system to typically harmless substances in the environment."

This view leaves out an important fact, which is that dust mite allergens damage your body in several ways.

How Dust Mite Allergens Directly Harm Your Body:

1. They degrade Lung Surfactant Proteins A and D, which are in the lung mucous and directly protect your body from pathogens like viruses and bacteria:
   Source: Major House Dust Mite Allergens Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus 1 and Dermatophagoides farinae 1 Degrade and Inactivate Lung Surfactant Proteins A and D
2. They degrade Alpha 1-antitrypsin and h-elafin, which help prevent your body from damaging itself with inflammation response:
   Source: The house dust mite allergen Der p1 catalytically inactivates alpha 1-antitrypsin by specific reactive centre loop cleavage: a mechanism that promotes airway inflammation and asthma
   Source: House Dust Mite Der p 1 Downregulates Defenses of the Lung by Inactivating Elastase Inhibitors
3. They directly stimulate non-allergic inflammation:
   Source: The role of innate immunity activation in house dust mite allergy
4. They damage the epithelial barrier, increasing permeability:
   Source: Der p 1 facilitates transepithelial allergen delivery by disruption of tight junctions

Allergies Do Make Things Worse

The classic idea of allergies where your body gets exposed to an allergen, remembers it, and then produces a response later is called Type 1 hypersensitivity.

And it is true that people suffering from dust mite allergies suffer worse outcomes with allergic diseases. Here's one example study, but there are many:

But development of allergies for dust mites and for other allergens is only one of the many consequences of the molecular damage.

Most Allergy Treatments Only Treat The Symptom

Many people treat allergies with medicines that reduce the body's immune response:

• Anti-histamines which prevent symptoms like itching, sneezing, runny nose, watery eyes, swelling.
• Immunotherapy, in the form of allergy shots or tablets which tries to unlearn your bodies memory of allergens so it won't respond to them.

But these treatments are fundamentally not right because they don't treat the root cause which is damage at the molecular level from exposure to dust mite toxins.

A far better strategy is to remove dust mites from your environment, prevent the development of allergy, and prevent the many diseases they cause.