Doctors have discovered a child's risk of developing an allergic disease is doubled if a parent of the same sex has suffered from it, new research has claimed.
Professor Hasan Arshad, a consultant in allergy and immunology at Southampton General Hospital, found that allergies such as asthma and eczema were gender-related and not simply hereditary.
"We have known for decades that allergy runs in the family and many thought that maternal effect was greater than paternal effect due to a mothers' closeness to her child, but we have discovered the inheritance is from mother to daughter and father to son," Prof Arshad said.
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