Recent research on hay fever

The following from an article (Why is hay fever so bad this year? The pollen bomb’s to blame) in The Times. I am not happy with the way many phenomena are now described as a 'bomb' when innocents are suffering from real bombs somewhere. The less important bits have been struck out, while the important bits are magnified, to make it easier for you to read.

Dr John Bostock had tried everything — cold baths, opium, doses of mercury and even bloodletting — but he could get no relief. Every year at “about the beginning or middle of June”, the 46-year-old would be struck down by “the most acute itching and smarting, accompanied with a feeling of small points striking or darting” into the eye.

It was March 1819, and Bostock, a doctor from Liverpool, was describing the first recorded case of hay fever to the Medical and Chirurgical Society.

Nowadays the symptoms are far from unusual. 

According to Allergy UK, one in four adults and one in eight children suffer from allergic rhinitis — the medical term for hay fever — and research shows the number of sufferers is rising each year.

This group — roughly 16 million people in the UK — is having a particularly hard time right now. Britain is in the grip of a bad hay fever episode. 

NHS England reports that last Sunday it received 27,834 visits to its hay fever web page — one visit every three seconds.

Levels of pollen — the cause of hay fever — often peak in June, as Bostock noted two centuries ago. But this year sufferers have been hit by a so-called pollen bomb — a relentless run of weeks in which pollen fills the air. Its roots can be dated back to last summer, when a prolonged hot spell created perfect conditions for many trees — particularly birch — to start forming the pollen that would be released this spring. A wet and mild winter and spring promoted growth, particularly in grasses, another top source of allergens. By April tree pollen was filling the air at unusually high levels. And the present heatwave has created the ideal conditions — dry and settled days with a light breeze — for grasses and weeds to disperse their pollen.

Beverley Adams-Groom, senior pollen forecaster at Worcester University, says we are experiencing the perfect weather for pollen dispersal. “Grasses will emit the most pollen on warm, sunny days with temperatures above 20C and up to 28C, which many parts of the country are now experiencing day after day.”

Until we get some prolonged rain to wash the pollen out of the air, the high pollen counts will persist. But even a downpour may not bring immediate relief, because storms break up the pollen into even smaller grains, which travel deeper into the lungs, creating outbreaks of what doctors call “thunderstorm asthma”.

Scientists say hay fever has been exacerbated by climate change, which is both extending and intensifying the season. “Over the past few years the hay fever season has become increasingly worse for sufferers,” says Margaret Kelman, acting head of clinical services at Allergy UK. Higher temperatures — and carbon dioxide itself — encourage plant growth and pollen production.

A recent study found pollen seasons in the US have lengthened by ten days since 1990 and the amount of pollen in the air has grown by 21 per cent. Similar trends are seen in the UK. Professor Sheena Cruickshank, an immunologist at Manchester University, says: “The way the seasons are changing favours an explosion of the kinds of plant that release pollen all at the same sort of time.”

Scientists are not sure why the number of sufferers has increased — but allergies in general are on the rise. One theory is overuse of antibiotics, particularly in infancy, wipes out bacteria in the body and makes the immune system overly sensitive.

Cruickshank’s research has shown hay fever is often worse for people in cities than in the countryside. She believes this is because air pollution damages and sensitises the lining of the airways, allowing pollen to cause more harm. Pollution also makes pollen more “sticky” — and likely to latch on to receptors in the nose and throat.

So, if you are suffering, what can you do? Over-the-counter antihistamines can be very effective, says Kelman. Wearing wraparound sunglasses and a brimmed hat outdoors reduces the amount of pollen that reaches your airways, and a Covid-style face covering can work wonders. “When you come in, take off the outside layer of clothing so that you’re not bringing the pollen into the main body of your house,” Kelman says. “Shower and wash your hair as soon as you can.”

Opium and bloodletting are not recommended.

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I will add: using reusable cloth hankies to wipe up snotty issue is more environmentally sound than paper tissue. But I am, of course, biased.

The Hankie Lady