Following the warm and muggy months of summer, many allergy sufferers rejoiced as pollen counts dropped with the arrival of cool fall weather. But a recent study shows that their celebration may have come too early.
According to allergy professionals, nearly a third of patients allergic to pollen may be feeling the symptoms they associate with the yellow dust – An itchy, scratchy throat, mouth, lips and tongue – as the result of something doctors are calling Food Pollen Syndrome or Oral Allergy Syndrome.
This syndrome shows the correlation between pollen and certain proteins that specific produce may share with pollen.
"Typically you breathe in pollen and you get a sneezy running nose and get itchy watery eyes," said Bill Howland, an allergist with the Allergy and Asthma Center of Austin. "Here you eat the fruit and it bothers us in the throat and mouth but not in the nose, so there's a correlation but the symptoms are different."
Because your body creates antibodies that fight pollen by creating a reaction to the allergen, these types of produce create the same type of reaction because the proteins they carry exhibit almost the same exact makeup as pollen.
The problem is that each pollen allergy has its own set of trigger foods, so it is hard to pinpoint what produce may cause a reaction for you without trial and error. But there is good news! Doctors have found that cooking the problem foods tends to reduce – if not eliminate – the reaction altogether.
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