What are the effective measures against hay fever?

＜prologue＞

I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.

So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.

It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.

It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.

If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.

I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.

my blog’s URL:https://skawa68.com/

my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X

This year, many people are wearing masks due to the global pandemic of COVID-19.

As a result, people are becoming very sensitive to coughs and sneezes. People with hay fever feel uncomfortable and it is difficult, but we hope that they can somehow get through this season.

Recently, “hay fever badges” that clearly state “I have hay fever” have been sold.

This appears to be a desperate measure to prevent people from mistaking it for “novel coronavirus pneumonia.” It is likely inspired by the “allergy badges” that have been around for a while.

When I was a junior high school student (in the 1960s), I had trouble with a runny nose that wouldn’t stop in the early spring. I didn’t have a headache or a cough, so I knew it wasn’t a cold, but I would have the same symptoms every year.

I thought it might be because of the cold weather in early spring, but I was never able to find the cause.

The word “hay fever” didn’t even exist then, but I think it was probably “hay fever.”

After that, even after I graduated from school and entered the workforce, I still had the symptoms, but I was so busy with work that I stopped paying much attention to them, and before I knew it, they had gone away.

However, this year, I have been having continuous loud sneezes since early spring, even though it is not cold. I am worried that this may be a recurrence of my hay fever.

１．What is Hay Fever?

Hay fever is a disease classified as a “type I allergy” and is “a syndrome caused by contact with plant pollen from flowers or mucous membranes such as the eyes, and characterized by a series of symptoms such as paroxysmal and recurrent sneezing, runny nose, nasal congestion, and itchy eyes.”

In Japan, outside of most of Hokkaido and Okinawa, cedar pollen is the most common allergen, but hay fever can also be caused by cypress and ragweed.

Hay fever occurs when a person comes into contact with airborne pollen from plants, resulting in an acquired immunity, and then when they come into contact with pollen again, they experience an excessive immune response (allergic reaction).

Yozo Saito (Tokyo Medical and Dental University), the discoverer of cedar pollen allergy, first became aware of hay fever in 1963 after examining many patients with allergic symptoms in the nose and eyes.

Ironically, the planting of American cedars, which was encouraged as part of postwar reconstruction efforts, spread throughout Japan, and this has become the root cause of the widespread spread of cedar pollen allergy. American cedars have the advantage of growing faster than Japanese cedars, but because they grew in harsh environments, they are a species that scatter large amounts of pollen in their efforts to produce many offspring.

Subsequently, as demand for wood increased, the number of cypress tree plantations increased, and this in turn led to an increase in cases of “cypress pollen allergy.”

２．Effective measures

（1）Prevention measures

① Avoid taking in pollen: Wear a mask and rimmed glasses (goggles)

② Remove pollen: Shake off pollen before coming home from outdoors, wash your hands, gargle, wash your face, use eye drops when coming back from outdoors, and shake off pollen when bringing in laundry that has been hung outside

③ Avoid going out on days when pollen is in the air: Just like avoiding crowds to prevent influenza

④ Try to live a regular life: Helps normalize the immune system and autonomic nervous system

⑤ Keep doors and windows tightly closed during hay fever season

⑥ Clean your room frequently

⑦ Use pollen blocking spray (pollen prevention spray)

（2）Symptomatic treatment (pharmacotherapy)

① Anti-allergy drugs

② Steroid drugs: Inappropriate use, such as unnecessary long-term administration, can lead to other infections or cause serious side effects, so caution is required.

③ Rhinitis medication

④ Sublingual immunotherapy: Launched by Torii Pharmaceutical in 2018, this is an allergen immunotherapy in which the treatment is administered under the tongue.

⑤ Antibody drug therapy: Novartis of Switzerland plans to sell a treatment that applies antibody drug technology in Japan in the fall of 2019.

（3）Foods and drinks that help prevent hay fever

Nutrients that are effective against hay fever include lactic acid bacteria, plant polyphenols, vitamins, and omega-3 fatty acids.

The following foods are listed as being effective against hay fever. However, it is important to consume them in a balanced way.

Yogurt, natto, ginger, banana, lotus root, blue fish, onion, sesame, shiso, honey

On the other hand, foods that are bad for hay fever include:

Sugar, instant foods, trans fatty acids (contained in margarine, etc.)

Some drinks that are effective against hay fever include:

Yakult, Calpis, tea, herbal tea, rooibos tea

For reference, the following drinks are bad for hay fever:

Caffeine, alcohol, milk

（4）Air purifiers

Daikin Industries has also released an air purifier that uses “Streamer technology” to break down cedar pollen, as well as exhaust fumes and PM2.5, which aggravate hay fever.

Dyson’s latest model air purifier is said to be able to remove up to 99.95% of PM0.1.

（5）Research and development of pollen-free cedar

Hay fever is a kind of “pollen disease.” At present, research and development of “pollen-free cedar” is being carried out at the Forest Research Institute of the Toyama Agricultural, Forestry and Fisheries Research Center. This is a variety called “Haruyokoi” that was cultivated from the seeds of a “pollen-free cedar” (a mutant of Tateyama cedar) discovered at a shrine in Toyama City in 1992. It is said to be an excellent product with three excellent features: “no pollen,” “good early growth,” and “high rooting ability of cuttings.”

A similar initiative is also underway in Kanagawa Prefecture, where they have been trial-producing “pollen-free cedar,” which was first discovered on the Pacific coast in 2004, since 2007 and have begun replanting it in prefectural forests.

I believe that if this “pollen-free cedar” were to be widely put into practical use and existing cedar trees were cut down and replanted, hay fever would be significantly reduced.

However, it will take several years before this method is widely used, and it is impossible to cut down all the existing cedar trees at once. However, we can hope that in a few decades, we will see a dramatic reduction in hay fever.

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