EYECARE: Coronavirus BRIEFING: Crisis Response Tactics People With Food Allergies Have Lower COVID Risk By Staff Friday, June 3, 2022 7:58 AM People with food allergies have 50 percent less risk of becoming infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 than people who don’t have food allergies, a National Institutes of Health study found.The Human Epidemiology and Response to SARS-CoV-2 (HEROS) study monitored the health of 4,000 people in 1,400 households between May 2020 and February 2021. This was a time when COVID vaccines were unavailable to the public or were not widely available, the NIH said.During the study, every household had at least one person 21 years old or older. Somebody in each household took nasal swabs every two weeks to test for COVID. Researchers weren’t sure why people with food allergies had a lower COVID risk. It’s possible that type 2 inflammation, which is often caused by an allergic reaction, reduces the levels of ACE2 receptors on the surface of the airway cells, the study says. Head over to WebMD to read the full story.