After a long winter, spring will hopefully soon arrive. It is eagerly awaited by many, but more and more Germans are also looking forward to the warm season with dread. They suffer from pollen allergies that spoil the nice weather with watery eyes, constant sneezing and a runny nose. Every third German citizen is already affected by allergies and often it starts in early childhood.
Displacement of the allergy
Usually it is initially certain foods that put the infant’s immune system “in turmoil”. Later, the body then reacts to certain allergy-causing substances in the air, as in the case of hay fever, for example. In children, one speaks in such cases of a regular allergy career.
And always the sword of Damocles of a so-called floor change hovers over the concerning. This is what allergists call a shift of the allergy from the upper airways, i.e. nose and throat, to the lungs. Specifically, this is then called asthma.
Allergies are on the rise – why is that?
Why allergy susceptibility is increasing so rapidly, especially in industrialized nations, is still not known exactly. The assumption that it could be due to an excessively polluted environment does not seem to be confirmed. In the former GDR, the air was demonstrably more polluted than in the West, yet allergies, such as asthma, occurred much less frequently in the East than in the FRG. It was not until after the fall of the Berlin Wall that the situation evened out: Air pollution in the East decreased, but allergies increased.
Allergy experts, such as Professor Rudolf Schopf from Mainz, believe it is more likely that a lack of the trace element zinc is at least partly responsible for the misery. More than half of all people suffer from a zinc deficiency, they told a specialist congress in Sweden.
“More than 300 different metabolic processes in our body cannot function properly without zinc,” Schopf explained. Zinc also has direct anti-allergic properties, as it stabilizes certain immune cells that play an important role in the development of allergy, Schopf added.
Zinc deficiency and hay fever
Zinc is absorbed primarily through food. The best sources of zinc are meat, poultry, milk, eggs and some legumes. However, these are precisely the foods that allergy sufferers often have to avoid. They therefore absorb too little zinc. In addition, after BSE and foot-and-mouth disease, meat is becoming less and less of a part of the diet of many other people who are not yet afflicted with allergies. The risk of a zinc deficiency is therefore also increasing here.
To prevent a zinc deficiency, zinc-containing preparations from the pharmacy could be an alternative. Professor Schopf points out, however, that studies show that the composition of the zinc medication is important here, as there can be differences in effectiveness.
“Coupled to the endogenous amino acid histidine, zinc is absorbed by the body much faster than with conventional zinc compounds. Histidine also has an anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effect , which means it is able to intercept and render harmless the “free radicals” produced during allergic reactions. Zinc and histidine are therefore extremely useful complements to each other in their cell-protective properties.”
The connection between zinc deficiency and hay fever has been known for years, yet the increased zinc requirement in hay fever patients and other allergy sufferers is still not given the attention it deserves, Professor Schopf laments.
Alleviate symptoms
Once hay fever has broken out, it cannot be completely eliminated even with zinc, but at least the symptoms can be significantly improved. For many allergy sufferers, that alone would be a great help.
The improved zinc supply is to be regarded thereby as an additional measure. On the actual basic therapy of the allergy one should do therefore in no case without.
It should also be noted that an excessive zinc supply in the long term can also have negative health consequences. According to a recommendation of the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), a maximum of 6.5 milligrams of zinc per day should be taken in through dietary supplements if zinc intake from food is insufficient.
