Allergies – increasing continuously

Allergies are increasing dramatically. About 25% of the population in Europe is suffering from an allergy. The forecast for the next years is that every second person will be affected of a kind of allergy. There exist nothing who can note create an allergy. Any substance, even if harmless, can cause a reaction. The most known triggers are:

• pollen
• dust
• pet dander and hairs
• dust-mites
• mould
• airborn particles
• general air pollution

Any form of allergy should not be considered harmless and needs an adequate cure. The most known allergy symptoms are hay-fever (medical term: rhinitis), asthma and conjunctivitis.

The nose is running, eyes are burning and red, the skin is itching. Hay-fever patients have to fight every year with these annually returning and for them troublesome symptoms. Their quality of life, in certain periods of the year, is therefore strongly limited. Due to the climate change and the Ambrosia (Ambrosia artemisiifolia), imported from America, who’s pollination is from July to October, the pollen season for allergy suffering people gets always longer and longer.

Therefore it is extremely important to find out the cause of an allergic reaction even if this is not always simple, but only this way who is affected can avoid “their” triggers.

Respirable pollen particles and environmental factors who can lead to allergies

Pollen grains have generally very small sizes (about 17 to 40 µm). In case of blocked breathing trough the nose they will be inhaled entering deep into the bronchia and elicit pollen asthma to sensitive people.

The increase of pollen allergies is as well caused from different environmental factors. Due to the global climate change and increasing temperature, plants such as hazelnut, alder, birch-tree and others start to flower earlier. Each year for example, the birch-tree starts to flower 4 days earlier compared to the previous year, rye one day and hazelnut 2 days. The flowering of the birch-tree for example, has already been anticipated about 30 to 40 days.

The pollen season starts earlier and has a longer duration and the quantity of pollen in the air is rising continuously. Therefore people are exposed always earlier, longer and stronger to pollen allergens. The risk to develop an allergy is rising drastically.

The extension of the pollen season and the rise of temperature in Europe goes hand in hand (presented at the example of the ash-tree)

The contact with 50 pollen grains per cubic meter of air is sufficient for complaints. An ear of rye for example distributes more than four millions of pollen grains during a season.