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Have you started to feel that your allergies are changing earlier each year, or maybe they last longer?
New research suggests that this is not just your imagination: climate change seems to disrupt the usual timeline of nature. The researchers found that the rate of seasonal allergies (hay fever) was higher by 14% in areas where the spring was earlier.
High resolution satellite data
"Climate change is a reality, it has an impact on our ecosystem now and on our health, in turn," said author of the study, Amir Sapkota. He is an badociate professor at the Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health in College Park, Maryland.
For this study, investigators used high resolution satellite data provided by NASA to identify early spring in the United States. They linked this information to data from a representative national American sample, collected by US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
According to Sapkota, the researchers looked at what was happening if the spring started earlier or later than normal.
"When spring starts early, the burden of allergic diseases – or hay fever – increases – but we also found a high prevalence of hay fever when the spring was late.It is like a mortality due to extreme temperatures. Kill us, there's a good compromise that's right, "said Sapkota.
If the season starts early, trees bloom and release pollen sooner than usual and can release pollen longer. "It's not a good thing if you suffer from allergies," he said.
Changes are not uniform
Sapkota said the results regarding increased problems if spring was delayed were a surprise. He does not know exactly why late spring would aggravate allergies, but he may suspect it because everything blooms at once – trees, flowers, herbs.
"All of a sudden, things are going bad at once, the season may be shorter, but you're bombarded," he said.
Dr. John Balbus, Senior Advisor for Public Health at the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, reviewed the study.
He said: "This is the first confirmation, based on health data, that changes in spring time and date could lead to a higher prevalence of allergy symptoms."
Balbus said the changes in the spring calendar are not uniform across the United States. "Over time, the pollen season tends to move closer to the northern latitudes because of climate change, which was done a few weeks earlier by the Canadian border, but not so much in Texas," he said. note.
More medications may be needed
But an earlier spring is not always the case. "What we see in a lot of weather data is a trend of increasing variability," said Balbus. For example, the east coast experienced a colder winter due to a fall in the polar vortex, which may delay the flowering season.
So, what does all this mean for people with allergies?
Dr. Punita Ponda, an allergist from Northwell Health in Great Neck, NY, said, "For most people with allergies, the old dogma of starting to take preventive medications in the middle of March will not be enough. "
She added that people with allergies in the spring should start looking at the number of pollen in April and may need to start taking their allergy medications by the end of February if the pollen count starts to increase . And, she said, they might need to continue taking these medications at least until mid-June.
"They may need to take their medication longer, and for short periods, other medications may be needed," she said. She advised people to contact their doctor for specific instructions depending on their situation.
The report was published online recently in the journal PLoS ONE.
Image credit: iStock
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