Important Role of Immunological Responses to Environmental Exposure in the Development of Allergic Asthma

Abstract

Allergic asthma is a public health problem that affects human health and socioeconomic development. Studies have found that the prevalence of asthma has significantly increased in recent years, which has become particularly pronounced in developed countries. With rapid urbanization in China in the last 3 decades, the prevalence of asthma has increased significantly in urban areas. As changes in genetic backgrounds of human populations are limited, environmental exposure may be a major factor that is responsible for the increased prevalence of asthma. This review focuses on environmental components of farms and rural areas that may have protective effects in reducing the development of asthma. Farm and rural related microorganism- and pathogen-associated molecular patterns are considered to be important environmental factors that modulate host's innate and adaptive immune system to induce protection effects later in life. Environmental microbial-related immunotherapy will also be discussed as the future research direction for the prevention of allergic asthma.

Keywords: Asthma; environmental exposure; epidemiology; house dust mite; hygiene hypothesis.