Hay fever ‘may be in the MIND – as people suffer allergic reaction when there’s no pollen’ – The Sun

ALLERGY sufferers could be triggered by life events as new research suggests conditions such as hayfever could be "in the mind".

A new study found that some people suffer from allergic reactions even when there is no pollen in the air and that they could in fact be having "placebo" allergic responses.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the US suggested that allergy symptoms could be triggered by putting someone in a place they had already been, which would in term trigger a memory.

One of the authors of the report, Luciana Besedovsky from Harvard Medical School and the University of Tübingen said an "allergic response can be triggered even in the absence of allergens by simply reencountering the environmental context in which an allergen was previously administered."

Hayfever affects around 13 million people in the UK and the pollen count for this week across most of the county is at a moderate level, except in the north and Scotland where some areas will see high pollen concentrations.

As the coronavirus pandemic in the UK continues, hayfever sufferers have also been growing concerned about their symptoms, some of which can be mistaken for the virus.

The tree pollen season started on April 5 and there is currently a high count from birch trees in particular.

The two main symptoms of coronavirus are a high fever and a new continuous cough, whereas people suffering with hayfever will not have a high temperature and will not usually have aches and pains, another symptom of the virus.

Researchers recruited 25 men and administered triggers such as birch pollen, grass and nasal spray, all triggers for people who suffer from hayfever.

In order to discover whether or not their reactions were in fact part of a placebo effect, the men were then told to enter the room later on and were given a harmless nasal spray, but were told that there was a 50 per cent chance that it contained pollen.

For some, being in the first room with a trace of pollen did spur a reaction.

But a second experiment, which saw them sniff an almond-scented chemical, saw many display symptoms of hayfever such as sneezing, despite there being no pollen around anymore. 

Dr Luciana said the triggering of a false allergic response only occurred when participants slept during the night after allergen administration and was entirely absent when they stayed awake on that night, "demonstrating that sleep is necessary for consolidating the association between environmental context and allergen".

She added: "These findings have important implications for understanding the often observed "placebo" allergic responses occurring in the absence of allergens".

In conclusion to her findings she said that sleep may actually be a contributor to the aggregation of allergies.

All participants enrolled in the test were not found to have any sleep disturbances before they began the trial.

She stated that people may have been "mentally conditioned" to associate a park with hayfever, therefore spurring on symptoms.

She added that while she is not claiming that people with hayfever make up the condition, it’s clear that there is a clear link between how the immune system responds to certain cues from the body.

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