Are we getting more allergic to things? ⏲️ 6 Minute English

33,043 views ・ 2025-04-03

BBC Learning English


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00:07
Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English.
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I'm Beth and I'm Neil.
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In this episode we're talking about allergies.
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Allergies are when a certain food or material makes you feel sick.
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Do you have any allergies, Beth? Yeah.
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So, I am actually allergic to dairy, so I can't have anything with milk.
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So no cheese, no butter.
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What about you, Neil? Have you got any allergies?
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Well, I'm not great with dairy either, but it's not an allergy,
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more of an intolerance,
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so it just makes me feel a bit bad rather than actually making me sick.
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But I do have hay fever, so I'm allergic to pollen.
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That means in the summer months I'm sneezing and coughing all the time.
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I get runny eyes and a runny nose,
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and it also gives me a little bit of asthma, so it's a bit of a pain.
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Oh yeah, that sounds really horrible.
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Now scientific evidence shows that more people are developing allergies.
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In this programme, we're going to find out about what it's like living
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with an allergy and where in the world has the highest rate of allergies.
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But first, I have a question for you, Beth.
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What is the most common allergy in the world?
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Is it a) peanuts, b) pollen or c) dairy?
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I'm going to say pollen.
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A lot of people I know have hay fever.
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Including me. Well, we'll find out the answer at the end of the show.
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Now, Beth, you're allergic to dairy, but imagine if you had over 50 allergies.
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That's the situation for Mia Silverman, who runs a social media account,
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Allergies with Mia, where she talks about living with lots of allergies.
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My 50 plus allergies include all nuts and their oils.
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I'm allergic to all fish except for cooked tuna and cooked codfish.
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Life for Mia involves a lot of planning,
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as she told BBC World Service programme, What in the World?
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And having these 50 plus allergies impacts my life every single day.
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So, when it comes to going to restaurants,
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having to call ahead of time,
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talk to the manager, talk to the chef to make sure
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that the restaurant can accommodate me, that they can make me something safe
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and use protocols to prevent any sort of risk of any allergens touching my dish.
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When it comes to socialising, it can be kind of hard sometimes,
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because I want to make sure that my friends don't feel inconvenienced
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or feel like I'm being a burden.
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If Mia wants to go to a restaurant,
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she has to call ahead of time to tell them about her allergies.
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If you call ahead of time, you phone somewhere,
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like a restaurant, before you go. We can also say call ahead.
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Mia needs to find out
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whether restaurants can accommodate her allergies.
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Accommodate in this context means give someone what they need.
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Because Mia has so many allergies, she has to visit restaurants
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which have protocols to stop the food she is allergic to
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touching her meal. Protocols means a set of rules
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for a process to make sure things are done properly.
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Now, most people who have allergies don't have as many as Mia,
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but scientists believe more people are developing allergies.
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And there is one place where the number of allergies is particularly high.
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Australia.
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In fact, Australia is called the allergy capital of the world.
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When we describe somewhere as the capital of the world in something,
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we mean that it's known for that thing.
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So the allergy capital of the world is the place in the world
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with the most allergies.
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BBC journalist Frances Mao is from Australia
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and explains some of the allergy data to BBC World Service podcast,
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What in the World?
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You're from Australia, which has been called the allergy capital of the world.
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What is it about Australia in particular that is making people more allergic?
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Australia's termed the allergy capital of the world because, due to the research
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and the data, that shows that almost one in ten infants have marked a allergy.
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And often that's a food allergy or a respiratory allergy,
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and that does drop off once they're a bit older.
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Age six or so, it goes down to about 6%,
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and then as an adult goes down to like 3%.
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Frances talks about the high numbers of Australian infants,
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that's babies, who have allergies.
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But she says the numbers drop off as children get older.
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If numbers or rates of something drop off, they get lower.
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By age six or so.
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Australian children are less likely to have allergies.
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We can use or so in informal speech to show that the number is an estimate.
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It's not exact.
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So Beth, is there anything we can do about all these allergies?
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Well, scientists are investigating giving babies vitamin D,
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which can be shown to reduce allergies.
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Another technique is immunotherapy,
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which involves scientists giving children tiny amounts
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of the thing they are allergic to and then building up their baby's tolerance.
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Interesting. And I think it's time to find out the answer to my question.
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I asked you, what is the most common allergy in the world?
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I said pollen. Was I right?
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You were right. Well done.
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05:13
OK. Let's recap the vocabulary we've learned,
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starting with call ahead of time, which means to phone somewhere
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like a restaurant before your appointment or before you go there.
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If you accommodate someone, you give them what they need.
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Protocols are strict rules for how something is done.
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If somewhere is the capital of the world for a particular thing,
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it's known for that thing.
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For example, London is sometimes called the theatre capital of the world
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because we have lots of theatres.
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If numbers drop off, it means they get lower.
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And we can add or so to a number in informal speech
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to show that the number is an estimate.
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It's not exact.
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Once again, our six minutes are up,
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but you can test your knowledge even more using the interactive quiz
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on our website. Visit bbclearningenglish.com.
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Bye for now. Bye!
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