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Comment by flohofwoe | Hacker News Reader

Hmm, most German forests are also vast monoculture 'tree farms' and have been for the last 250 years (also caused by large scale deforestation in the centuries before). In the Ore Mountains we also have those yellow clouds of pollen coming off spruce trees every few years, covering everything with a thin yellow dust layer, yet I'm not aware that the number of people with pollen allergies is exceptionally high (oth, maybe it was 200 years ago and by now the population has become immune, or maybe the tree pollen in Japan is just more aggressive...).

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The spruce and other local conifers (I live by the Bohemian Forest/Bayerischer Wald) have pollen that seems to be low allergenic by design. I know a lot of people who are allergic to birch or weed pollen, but not to spruce.

By design? Who designed the pollen in those trees?

I read it as "breeds selected to be low-allergenic" by the relative orgs that I assume (re)planted them there but I have no real idea about german forests and the processes of planting trees there.

No. Just some trees that produce pollen aren't particularly allergenic.

So by coincidence, not by design then.

I guess they meant 'by nature', but maybe not, which will be fun to hear!

I assume they meant the people who planted those "tree farms", that they chose trees people were less allergic to.

Different pollen have different weights. If you're seeing yellow dust laying on the ground then it's likely to be a heavy pollen that won't bother many people unless they actively stir it up. Example: People with pine allergies aren't really bothered unless they play in the pine needles and stir it up.

Not familiar with the biology of the matter. But I would assume there are advantages and disadvantages to the weight of the pollen in how it disperses and pollinates.

I moved to Germany as an adult from a completely separate biome, and I’ve got terrible problems with allergies I never had in my home country

Yes. I relate myself with that. If i am in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Poland, no issues.. in Germany, i have terrible problems with allergies too.

Same here. Some of the worst seasonal allergies I've ever had was while living in Germany. I'm not sure what exactly was responsible; my guess at the time was some sort of grass but I don't know for sure.

I wonder to what degree it's about what you are used to. I grew up in Germany and never had allergies. However, after a few years in the Pacific Northwest I developed seasonal allergies that get worse every year.

Pollen allergies have definitely skyrocketed in Sweden. We used to be able to sit in an office and work all year without hearing people sniffle and sneeze.

Now it's like an epidemic, at least half the office is affected.

Probably we can blame higher hygiene standards, or some other environmental factor for it. Forests haven't changed much in past decades.

Here in Finland I've never been affected by any kind of tree pollen at all, but somehow timothy grass pollen gives me horrible symptoms, forcing me to take antihistamine most of the summer. I lived my childhood near farmland and forests, so definitely got exposed to both forms of pollen at early age.

food is full of histamine, especially fish and fermented food which is considered healthy but some (MCAS, HIT) people are sensitive.

Yes timotej is my allergy as well.

And I got it as an adult, in 2009. So 26 years without any allergies, then suddenly, one summer in Helsingborg, the air was thick with pollen. I remember the smell was like cheese doodles in the air, musty.

Once I got back from an errand in the city my face was leaking, I walked to the pharmacy with blurry vision to get my first antihistamines. Ever since then every year june is a nightmare. It affects your sleep, so it affects every part of life.

And since then I've observed more and more pollen allergies around me, friends, co-workers, strangers on the bus. It's very prevalent.

I would not be surprised if humans caused this somehow with our modern city planning.

Once you get sensitized, it gets worse every year, right?

Since my teenage years I was mildly allergic to pollen, and now in my adulthood it seems to be getting progressively worse. Each spring is worse than the previous one, and the antihistamines do less effect (or so I subjectively feel).

Yes I think the occasional attacks of pollen get worse, but in the long term I'm more used to it and I've learned habits to alleviate.

For example taking the right kind of antihistamines, taking them in the evening before bed, and most important regular cleaning.

That is the general pattern but not always. I never used to have allergies and then developed them a few years ago. Was very miserable for a couple months every year for about 5 years but they disappeared again a couple years ago. I tried a few things like taking a spoonful of local honey every day etc. Ultimately I don't know what made the difference sadly but I haven't been bothered by seasonal allergies for several years now.

Not _necessarily_. I had big problems with pollen when I was a kid, but very rarely, these days (there seems to be _something_ that causes me difficulty for a few weeks a year, but that's more or less it now).

I've had seasonal allergies for decades and haven't seen them trend more intense, though some years have more allergens than others.

Personally I only take allergy medication maybe 50-100 days a year, and usually just a half dose. I have definitely heard from people with worse symptoms that they get a tolerance to medications so it may help to switch between them if you take them year round.

> modern city planning

One theory has to do with sanitation and how well we've done at eliminating parasites. Some people have reported successfully curing allergies by giving themselves a hookworm infection.

> The fact that some local African languages contain no words to describe allergic symptoms could support this hypothesis, indicating that allergic diseases have never been a problem among these populations

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6585781/

If only the US department of health had a bold vision on how to solve this.

Perhaps we can blame exposure to actual pathogens which resemble the pollen in some way, triggering a misdirected immune system response.

Trees react to climate change.

After droughts some release more pollen as a survival reaction

I kinda suspect it was the Covid. I didn’t have allergic reactions until I was infected with Covid. I don’t have proof though.

Covid fucked with people in various, not easy to measure ways. Some effects went away (like losing smell and taste, but it took months for me), some... not so much.

When I get cold/sneezing (the usual non-flu winter sickness) I cough much more since covid, more thick sputum created in the lower part of the throat. Talked with few people around and they confirmed they feel similar effects.

Allergies could easily be another area where effects can be subtle but permanent in some individuals. My father's hair got almost completely white after he almost ended up on ventilation for example. We as family with 2 kids (back then babies) had covid at least 11-12 times so far (confirmed by tests, wife is a doctor), plus few other probably-but-not-tested. Most recent one last autumn was like immunity went to 0 again, was coughing away nasty stuff for another month. I am glad I just survived all that, some of that was mild and some was pretty harsh on body and mind.

I had exactly the same experience. After I contracted Covid, until last year, it usually took me 2 weeks to stop coughing after the other symptoms went away. I think what improved the situation is exercise. I started to sprint walk a lot since last year and so far I haven’t had any long cough since then.

My son also got asthma after Covid. But he also improved when he grew a bit older (now close to six). We still give him the pumps whenever he had a bad cold, though.

Hope you and your family get better. It is very nasty. It is not life threatening but threatens pretty much everything else.

Well said, thank you. Same thoughts go back to you and your family

I got a dustmite allergy directly after a Covid infection. Also, I got no proof but it made me suspicious if there could have been a connection..

Yeah, pretty close to what I got. Man that sucks. But I can confirm that taking exercises helps.

In Berlin the situation is horrible. For the past few weeks the pollen mixed with rain water looks like a yellow chemical spill on the side of the roads. Also it gets worse depending on the wind as well because most of the pollen from nearby forests in Brandenburg ends up in Berlin as well.

I grew up in a tropical country and never ever had any allergies in my life but in Berlin if I step outside with taking anti-allergy pills, that would be the death of me

Spruce is also a problem in Poland, especially southern. Leaf trees have been replaced with "fast growing" spruce over a hundred years ago.

Pollen can be broadly separated into airborne and not-airborne.

Ragweed pollen is light enough to be borne miles by wind. Goldenrod pollen is too heavy for that, but is sticky, and is carried on fur and feathers. Ironically, people blame the showy goldenrod blooms for allergies, although they likely have never had goldenrod pollen in their breathing passages - while lowly, hiding ragweed unleashes millions of barbed pollens spores upon their breathing passages. (Ragweed flowers are small and green - you can stare at a plant and not realize it's blooming!)

Likewise: the sap of poison ivy is strongly allergenic; the sap of maple trees almost never, due to reactivity with immune systems. Americans are likely to be exposed to both.

So, in short: there are plants that are potential allergy-sources, and others that are not.

one one had Japan seem to have quite bad luck with the specific tree(s) mass planted

but also on the other hand in Germany problems with allergies are very common and a pretty big deal for many people, it's just that we got used to it

but also while Germany has not-very-diverse "tree farms" for a very long time, the level of monoculture got way worse in the last 70-100 years AFIK, especially after WW2 the only way to cope with the extreme high demand was to mostly plant very fast growing trees. I.e. mostly spruce and pine.

Idk. if allergies got worse due to this and we just didn't notice because of having so much bigger problems (like many cities lying in ashes) or if Germany always had similar bad allergy problems. But this WW2 induced increase in monoculture is still a huge problem even ignoring allergies as this made German forests especially susceptible to things like pests and adding stress from climate change has lead to mass dying of trees in some regions.

Germany has half the percentage of forest as Japan

Context:

Germany, area 357,022 km2 (137,847 sq mi) water 1.27%

Japan, area 377,975 km2 (145,937 sq mi), water 1.4%

On average sure, but there are regions in Germany with both high amount of forest areas and fairly high population density (e.g. Ore Mountain region up to 50% forest area and more than 200 people/km^2).

Some trees pollen causes allergies, other tree pollen does not. Peanuts frequently produce allergic reactions, macadamia nuts rarely do.

My aunt in Poland has terrible allergies now because of yellow pollen from spruce, but I'm not sure how that translates to larger population, other than it does happen

Spruce allergy is a thing but it is rare. Only a few unlucky people suffer from it.

In Germany I understand the non-native trees in the warmer climate are succumbing to beetles, and dying out.

I understand that they're being replanted by more native species.

Yes true, especially the Harz mountains currently look like a post-apocalyptic wasteland (also visible on Google Maps), it will take decades to regrow with more diverse and climate resistant tree types, but worth it (compared to reforesting with another layer of fast growing trees of the same type).

Hayfever allergy rates are growing around the whole world, Germany included.

"why do you sneeze, we don't do that Germany"

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