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Hay Fever - a major misunderstanding
 Did you know that the term hay fever is based on a major misunderstanding of the human immune system, that hay fever doesn't necessarily have any link with hay, and that hay fever is also connected to the decrease in family size?
The medical experts define hay fever as "an allergy which is dependent on the season and which is caused by blossom pollen". Yet the term allergy comes from the Greek " to do (ergon) different (allos)". The term was invented by the Viennese children's doctor, Clemens von Pirquet. He had observed that patients treated with a diphtheria-vaccine derived from horses showed signs of an illness that had nothing to do with diphtheria, The patient's body had "done something different" - they had experienced an allergic reaction.
Wrong decision
Something very similar occurs with hay fever: strangely, the allergy sufferer's defence system defends itself against pollen, which, in theory, is not dangerous and is not harmful for the majority of people. In effect, the defence system takes a bad decision. It thinks that it is threatened and fights against the pollen with all available resources.
The pollen has taken the lead
Every fifth Central European is an allergy sufferer. Amongst the allergies are hay fever, eczema and asthma of the respiratory tract. Pollen is by far the main cause of allergies, at 50%, followed by animal hairs (25%). This means that every tenth Central European suffers from hay fever.
Hay and hay fever
Hay has little or nothing to do with hay fever. On the contrary: studies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland have consistently shown that children who grow up on farms surrounded by hay only suffer half as often from hay fever as other children in rural areas.
Big, happy families
There is another interesting finding that comes from Germany. Prior to the country's re-unification, fewer children in the East had hay fever compared with children in the West. This difference is no longer observed today. Experts explain this phenomenon by the fact that small children in the East used to be cared for in nurseries where their immune system was so busy fighting off infections that any substances that could have caused an allergy, were ignored. This failure to react to potential allergens carried on in later life. A similar hypothesis is offered for the case of children from large families. Because of the concentration of infection, they suffer far less frequently from allergies than children from small families.
Autumn's child is lucky
Who develops hay fever? Along with the environment, which plays a decisive role in the early years, heredity is a second, very important factor. The risk of hay fever is up to eight times greater where both parents demonstrate allergic reactions. It is also interesting to note that date of birth could prove significant in the development of hay fever. According to the research, children born in spring are at greater risk than those born in autumn. Furthermore, children often develop allergies to the pollen of plants, which are in flower at the time of their birth.
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