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Allergy symptoms in relation to alder and birch pollen concentrations in Finland

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Abstract

In order to study allergic people responding to daily changes in pollen concentrations, we compared personal diary data on allergic symptoms and the use of allergy medicines to daily pollen counts during the two unequal alder and birch pollen seasons of 2009 and 2010. Almost 90% of the 61 subjects with physician-diagnosed birch pollinosis developed conjunctival, nasal or other symptoms during the peak birch pollination. Most subjects (95%) also reported symptoms during the alder pollination. Despite a delay between the most severe symptoms and the pollen peaks and the increased risk of allergy symptoms between the alder and birch pollen peaks at much lower pollen concentrations, the number of subjects with allergy symptoms correlated with the daily pollen concentrations in both years (r 09 = 0.35, r 10 = 0.36, p < 0.01). The positive correlation was even stronger (r 09 = 0.69, r 10 = 0.74, p < 0.001) in relation to the cumulative sum of daily concentrations. The use of allergy medicines precisely followed the abundance of allergy symptoms in both years (r 09 = 0.96, r 10 = 0.70, p < 0.001). We conclude that there is a fair correlation between the daily allergy symptoms and the particular pollen concentrations, but the risk of developing symptoms at low, moderate and high concentrations is affected by the progression of the pollen season.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. South Karelia Allergy and Environment Institute, Lääkäritie 15, 55330, Tiuruniemi, Finland

    Juha Jantunen & Kimmo Saarinen

  2. Department of Biology, University of Turku, 20014, Turku, Finland

    Auli Rantio-Lehtimäki

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  1. Juha Jantunen
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  2. Kimmo Saarinen
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  3. Auli Rantio-Lehtimäki
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Correspondence to Juha Jantunen.

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Jantunen, J., Saarinen, K. & Rantio-Lehtimäki, A. Allergy symptoms in relation to alder and birch pollen concentrations in Finland. Aerobiologia 28, 169–176 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10453-011-9221-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10453-011-9221-3

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