Recently, I visited the Emergency Room because my boyfriend had a severe allergic reaction to the point where he could no longer breathe.

He accidentally had pecans (a class of tree nuts) to which his body responded immediately with a heightened immune response. The medical team used epinephrine in an effort to open up the airways that were swelling and increase the blood flow throughout the body so that he could breathe again. Epinephrine has these effects because they have receptors on smooth muscles – involuntary muscles – that block the airway, subsiding the tightening. Seeing him go through the significant swelling and discomfort, I began to wonder if allergies are truly useful for us to survive or if they are simply a neutral byproduct of genetic and environmental influences that falsely attack foreign substances that are nontoxic.