If you’re a severe allergy sufferer, and you’re in the market for some silver linings, here’s a good one.
According to a study published in Frontiers In Microbiology, which is a medical journal and not a magazine about very tiny cowboys, people with severe seasonal allergies that result in a runny nose and sniffling have a unique and diverse array of fungi living in their noses. Congratulations.
One of the authors of the study, Luis Delgado of the University of Porto, Portugal, says that people suffering from allergic rhinitis (the fancy medical way of saying that the nasal passages have become inflamed in response to allergens) have significantly higher fungal diversity in their nose compared to those who blissfully waltz through life without having to worry if they’ve got some snot dribbling down their nose. This also applies to any asthma sufferers out there.
Nose Fungi and Allergies Explained
The researchers from the University of Porto and George Washington University collected nasal swabs from 214 children and young adults who attended an immunology and asthma clinic in Porto. 155 of them had both allergic tinnitus and asthma. 47 of them only had allergic rhinitis and 12 just had asthma. This was all weighed against a control group of 125 totally healthy lucky bastards who were enrolled in the study.
The researchers sequenced the fungal DNA found in all those runny noses. The results showed that people with allergies and asthma have a microscopic adaptation of The Last of Us going on inside their nostrils.
According to Delgado, the findings suggest that allergies fundamentally change the composition of your upper airway’s microbiome. The findings also suggest that allergic rhinitis and asthma might be two different reactions to the same underlying condition.
Tati also was able to identify some common fungi that humans are known to be allergic to. These fungi were present in all of the samples they took, even from healthy people, but they were especially prevalent in the noses of allergy and asthma sufferers.
Searchers also found a whole bunch of a chemical compound called 5-aminoimidazole ribonucleotide, or AIR, in the noses of patients who are suffering from both allergies and asthma. The researchers say this is good news because with a little bit more study somebody may one day be able to create a medication that specifically targets AIR to treat the symptoms of seasonal allergies and asthma.
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