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Toxicant & Disease Database

Toxicant and Disease Database

The CHE Toxicant and Disease Database is a searchable database that summarizes links between chemical contaminants and approximately 180 human diseases or conditions. Diseases and or toxicants can be viewed by utilizing the search options below. In 2025, we have also added links to information available in the Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (CTD). See a full description of the database and our methodology.

See also our compilation of other Databases and Resources.

For questions or comments about the database, please contact us through our Contact form.

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Asthma - allergen, sensitizer

Causes Grouped by strength of evidence

Strong Evidence acid anhydrides acrylates aluminum amines amylase animal antigens captafol chlorothalonil chromium cobalt colophony egg lysosyme enzymes epoxy resins ethanolamines ethylenediamine fiber dust fungal antigens glutaraldehyde grain dust insect antigens isocyanates latex metal fumes methacrylates nickel p-phenylenediamine papain pepsin plant pollens plastic dusts plastic fumes platinum polypropylene PVC subtilase trypsin tungsten carbide vanadium wood dust	Good Evidence acetaldehyde acrolein air pollution aldehydes coal dust diazonium salts diesel exhaust ethylene oxide formaldehyde hexachlorophene ozone persulfate salts phenols propionaldehyde pyrethins / pyrethroids reactive dyes sulfathiazole tannic acid	Limited Evidence aziridine azodicarbonamide phthalates senna styrene

Notes

Allergens causing allergic asthma can also cause allergic rhinitis. Over 250 agents have been documented to cause immunological occupational asthma, a few broad categories are included here. The haplotype HLA DQB1*0503 is associated with TDI asthma, while allele DQB1*0501 confers protection to TDI. The Th2 type of T helper cells has been associated with an increased likelihood of developing allergies and asthma. Air pollutants may act in conjunction with common allergens to increase sensitivity to other common allergens.

ADDITIONAL DATA: The toxicant–disease relationships shown above were last updated in 2011. The relationships shown here are still valid, but additional research has been conducted since that time. Additional research on this disease can be found at this link:

COMPARATIVE TOXICOGENOMICS DATABASE: CURATED RESULTS
Asthma

This link will direct your search to an external database, the Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (CTD). This database is different from, and complementary to, our database.

More information about sources and methods

CHE’s Toxicant and Disease Database evaluates existing evidence and categorizes that evidence based on its strength. It is constructed using expert judgment and epidemiological causal inference.
The CTD, in contrast, is a continually updated resource that presents information on a broad range of literature on chemical-disease relationships. It also provides data on genes, biological processes, and phenotypes related to chemicals and diseases. It does not categorize information based on strength of evidence, include an expert judgment process, or draw causal conclusions about toxicant-disease relationships.
The link we have provided on this page goes directly to CTD's curated results, which are a subset of the information available through CTD. Curated results in CTD are those for which studies are available on the toxicant-disease relationship.