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People with allergies are less likely to develop cancer
Last reviewed: 30.06.2025
Statistically, people who suffer from contact allergies are less susceptible to certain types of malignant tumors, including brain, breast and skin cancer.
If you can't go outside in June because of poplar fluff, don't be upset: perhaps in the future your allergy will serve you well by protecting you from cancer. As researchers from the University of Copenhagen (Denmark) write in the journal BMJ Open, the likelihood that an allergy sufferer will develop a malignant tumor in the future is much lower than in completely healthy people.
The scientists' conclusions are based on data on 17,000 adult patients who were tested for allergic reactions; the time period of the collected statistics covered more than twenty years, from 1984 to 2008. The case histories were studied in great detail, including data from other medical centers where people visited. In 35% of cases, cases of contact allergy were registered, which occurs when the skin comes into contact with chemicals or even metals (for example, nickel) - this group included those who at least once in their life experienced an allergic reaction to at least one allergen. Women are more susceptible to allergies than men: 41% versus 26% of those who were sensitive to contact allergens. Of all 17 thousand cases, on average, every fifth person visited doctors with tumors, and of these, only 38% demonstrated a positive allergic reaction.
In general, the researchers note a strict relationship between the likelihood of developing a cancerous tumor and the presence of an allergic reaction. Allergy sufferers suffered from breast cancer and non-melanoma skin tumors to a significantly lower degree; female allergy sufferers suffered from brain cancer less often. All this confirms the so-called immune surveillance hypothesis, according to which people with an overly active immune system are less susceptible to cancer. In allergy sufferers, the immune system is too responsible and, while causing inconvenience in everyday life, at the same time (and due to its increased “suspiciousness”) effectively destroys cancer cells.
On the other hand, in the same paper, the scientists note that the incidence of bladder cancer was higher in people with contact allergies, apparently due to high levels of chemical metabolites accumulating in the blood.
Be that as it may, these results are only a statistical analysis of a certain set of data and, like any statistics, can only serve as an impetus for further research aimed at revealing the mechanism of the phenomenon - in this case, the relationship between contact allergy and cancer incidence.
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