Allergy season approaches

Today, Japan is masked against the flu. Soon it will be masked against pollen. ’Tis the season. Allergies, says Shukan Gendai (Feb 27) are “the civilized disease” – small comfort to those who suffer from them, though they’d probably acknowledge that, as scourges go, allergies are preferable to the mosquito-borne epidemics that periodically plague the world’s less developed regions.

One Japanese in two is allergic to something; one in four, to pollen. What is an allergy? Basically, says Shukan Gendai, it’s the immune system gone mad. Its function is to fight off harmful foreign bodies. In the immune system of an allergic person the emphasis is not on “harmful” but on “foreign.” Pollen is harmless but the immune system discharges its artillery anyway. The sneezing, runny noses, itchy eyes, sometimes headaches and diarrhea, are defense mechanisms – “Out!” they cry. But pollen in spring, most notably cedar pollen from an overplanting of cedar trees by the postwar government desperate for lumber to rebuild the war-ravaged country, pays little heed. It keeps coming regardless, as though taunting the immune system with its inexhaustible reproductive power. Whatever victories the immune system wins are temporary and pyrrhic.

Why are the Japanese so exceptionally vulnerable? The culprit, interestingly enough, is cleanliness. Japan, says Shukan Gendai, is clean to a fault, over-sanitized to the point that the immune system can develop a morbid sensitivity to intrusions of any kind. Too much hygiene can be as harmful as too little. That fits with some scientifically-grounded observations – for example, that 60 to 70% of children in cities suffer from allergies, versus 30% in the country, where kids get to roll around in the dirt and interact with animals a lot more.

It appears also that first-born children are more likely to be allergic than their younger siblings. Parents who, daunted by their inexperience, keep nervous watch over the first-born are more relaxed and easygoing by the time the second comes along, no longer reacting with alarm every time the child puts something in its mouth. Younger siblings, in short, give their immune systems a broader-based education.

Heredity is a factor too. Two allergic parents have a 60% likelihood of having allergic offspring; if one parent is allergic, the likelihood is 40%; if neither parent is, 20%. What else? The usual suspect – stress. It doesn’t do the immune system any good, and in Japan more than in many other societies, it’s unavoidable.

If pollen is the most common allergen, it is hardly the only one. Some others noted by Shukan Gendai are interesting. What would it do to a person’s life, for example, to be allergic to semen? You can make up your mind to endure the genital irritation it causes, but in worst cases it can induce shock, so caution is advisable. A condom helps, but what if you want children? Then the only solution seems to be filtering the semen of the offending protein and inseminating artificially.

Some people – fortunately very few – are allergic to water. Some are allergic to rice. Rice allergy in fact seems on the increase, due partly to residual agricultural chemicals, partly to a Westernized diet which is rendering rice “foreign.”

Beer. A beer allergy could put a serious crimp in a person’s social life. No, you needn’t give up drinking altogether to skirt it; the glycoprotein responsible is used in beer brewing and isn’t present in other alcoholic beverages. Just change your tipple.

One final allergy deserves mention: the cell phone. Not the phone per se, but the nickel it contains, causing ugly welts on the allergic cheek against which it is held. Metal-free phones are available, however, or failing that, a protective sheet held between phone and cheek should do the trick.

© Japan Today