Have you ever wondered why you may have more sneezing, wheezing or cough when around a cat yet, your allergy test to cat was negative?

Well, a recent  European study in the Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine concluded that a significant number of people with established allergic sensitivity to indoor and outdoor triggers (but not cat) have lungs that are hyper-responsive when exposed to environmental cat dander. A special test to measure twitchiness of the lungs, called Methacholine Challenge Test was done on over a thousand subjects in different cities. It was surprising that so many people negative on allergy testing to cat, had more bronchospasm in association with cat exposure compared to cat free environments.

Before I start telling all my patients the cat must go, I'll look out for other studies to further support these results (as suggested by the authors).

Anyone share the experience noted above?

I also hang out at http://www.allergy-asthmacorner.com