The most asked question about cat breeds is if the breed is hypoallergenic. There are a lot of people who like cats and who want to adopt a purebred cat but who are allergic to cats. There are constant searches for a breed of cat which is hypoallergenic. Hypoallergenic means a cat that is less likely to produce an allergic reaction in the cat’s owner.
Despite what you read on the internet there are no hypoallergenic cat breeds. There is one cat breed which is claimed more than others to be hypoallergenic: the Siberian, but my research indicates that this is not true. The real truth is that cat breeders want to make their cat breed stand out from the crowd and what better way than to claim it is hypoallergenic. Some Siberian breeders have claimed this and the claim has been disseminated by bloggers.
Well-known cat breeds such as the Siamese and Maine Coon are not hypoallergenic.
You’ll have to assume that all cats from all breeds are not hypoallergenic. However, I’d argue that this quality in cats also various between individual cats. Unneutered males are more likely to produce an allergic reaction than spayed females for instance. I am not allergic to cats but an unneutered male stray cat who I named Timmy caused an allergic reaction in me. Perhaps all humans are potentially allergic to cats in varying degrees but for most the reaction is too slight for symptoms to appear.
If I were you I’d proceed on the basis that all cats create the allergen Fel D1 in their saliva and therefore will provoke an allergic reaction in people who are sensitive to that allergen. You may be lucky in finding an individual cat who creates less of this unfortunate allergen. And you can do things to reduce the impact of the allergen on you.
If someone can positively produce scientific evidence to the contrary I’d be delighted to publish it. But it can’t be anecdotal information. There is too much of that on the internet already.
