CHOICES SHAPE YOUR FUTURE
By Judith Ashton
This time of year can cause suffering for so many people due to pollen which can trigger :sneezing, itchy eyes, runny nose and other symptoms. It’s a time of dread for those with seasonal allergies.
I am allergic to cigarette smoke, female cats and Royal Jelly which is a bee product. Royal Jelly is a honeybee secretion that can be taken as a tonic by humans. At the time, I was living with a lot of stress in Dublin, and I thought that a good tonic was a great idea.
The first dose of Royal Jelly was fine and hardly noticed that my nose started to run a little. When I took the second dose, my throat started to close over, my eyes swelled up, my mouth itched, I started to wheeze and I had a full-blown anaphylactic shock. We dialled 999 and fortunately a Care doc was in the vicinity, and she gave me an adrenaline injection, called the ambulance and I stayed overnight in St. Vincents hospital where they kept a close eye on me and discharged me the next day.
It was a very scary experience, never to be repeated! I have an epi pen just in case.
Severe allergies can seriously restrict one’s life and create stressful hyper-vigilance, especially if it’s a food allergy. Many children suffer from peanut allergy which can be fatal. Some interesting research in this regard for both children and adults consists of gradually, under medical supervision, building up immunity and tolerance to peanuts by eating small amounts of the same. The research was conducted at Guy’s and St. Thomas’ and King’s College London and led by Prof. Stephen Till.
Several adults who had severe peanut allergy and lived in fear of inadvertently eating some, were closely monitored ingesting minute doses of peanut flour with yoghurt and the dose was gradually increased till they could eat several peanuts every day to maintain immunity. It’s a high-risk treatment, requiring multiple hospital visits and close medical supervision and for those candidates who were successful it was a life changing experience.
29% of Irish people have some type of allergy which is about 1.4million with 15% requiring specialist care. 26% of the population have hay fever, 5% of kids and 2% adults have food allergies. Some people suffer multiple allergies. Over 45,000 have asthma and these numbers are rising both here and in Europe. This represents a huge cost for healthcare, lost work days and sick benefits.
I came across a very interesting article by Rebecca Seale citing some cutting-edge research from Prof. Tari Haahtela of Helsinki University, which started in the 1990s. Karelia is a vast forested area part Finland and part N.W. Russia, half the population are Finnish and half are Russians. Genetically they are very close but have very different lifestyles because of The Iron Curtain. In 1990s the Finns were more urbanised and the Russians lived in rural poverty, as many previous generations had; growing their own food, drinking from wells and raising animals, but interestingly, had far less allergies than the Finns who had 25% hay fever to their 5%. Only 2% of Russian kids had asthma compared to 27% of Finns. By 2010 the allergy rates of the Finnish kids were 10x higher than the Russians and this prompted Prof Haahtela to look at the Finnish kids who had NOT developed allergies and he found that they all lived in very bio-diverse areas with lots of greenery around and they also had more diversity of microbes on their skin.
Prof. Haahtela’s conclusions seem to strongly indicate that our bodies are divorced from a natural way of living close to Nature. Many researchers now call this evidence: biodiversity hypothesis which means that our health is directly affected by our LACK of exposure to animals, plants, trees and natural microbes especially as children.
We need to get our hands in the earth. To stay strong and healthy kids need to get dirty! If you have asthma, your need for medication can decrease 26% if you visit a green space 4 or 5 weekly.
Up to 2018 Prof. Haahtela’s research saved the Finnish government €200 million on medical costs and €1.2 billion on indirect costs eg. Welfare benefits.
Yet another example of fascinating research which once again proves that everything is connected! Desmond Morris, the naturalist, who died recently always said we are simply “Naked Apes”.
Check out : Rebecca Seale’s book: “Irritated: The Allergy Epidemic and What We Can Do About It.”
