Allergies have increased over the past few decades. About one in four Finns suffers from a significant allergy at some point of life. Dr Tari Haahtela, Head of the Skin and Allergy Hospital, believes that we should re-establish our contact with the nature and improve our resistance.
Allergies A unique change in the history of mankind took place in the 20th century: masses of people moved from rural to urban areas and industrialisation affected our way of life. We are now living in highly hygienic homes, we buy processed, packed food, wear shoes throughout the year and drive our children to their leisure activities, which are arranged indoors.
“The environment we live in has changed. Microbes from the soil are no longer burdening our immune system like they used to. We talk about the asphalt index: the further we drift from the nature, the weaker our immune system becomes,” Dr Haahtela explains.
The industrialised way of life has not actually created so many new risks, but it has reduced the elements that protect us against allergies. Our life is sterile.
The further we drift from the nature, the weaker our immune system becomes, Tari Haahtela believes.
One in two
Finns has symptoms
Even though many of us experience hypersensitivity symptoms, they are usually mild. A small minority gets strong reactions. At the national level, negative effects on people’s well-being and working capacity are considerable. Especially, as allergies often begin in childhood and may last for decades.
In 2008, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and the National Public Health Institute (now the National Institute for Health and Welfare) launched a national allergy programme in Finland.
“The purpose is to stop the increase in allergy cases. The programme is mainly targeted at children. We aim for a distinct reduction of allergy cases in children in ten years,” says Tari Haahtela, who is the head of the programme team.
“What we need is a
sense of proportion”
The national allergy programme includes various training courses for healthcare personnel and aims for harmonisation of treatment practices.
The programme emphasises health; allergens should not be avoided just to be on the safe side. Dr Haahtela says that a mild allergy can also be seen as a tendency that does not necessarily need to be medicalised or medicated. When mildly allergic people develop a better tolerance, they will experience fewer symptoms.
“Most allergic people are at full working capacity. Allergies do not automatically become worse, and our immune system often keeps the symptoms toned down. We should not fuss so much about a few sneezes caused by pollen. What we need is common sense and a sense of proportion,” Dr Haahtela demands.
What are
allergies about?
When something foreign, such as a virus or bacterium, enters the human body, it tries to fight off the intruder. We develop an immune response. In allergic people, however, the immune system fights even harmless intruders, such as pollen or food.
Allergies and asthma are disorders of the immune system, like diabetes, coeliac disease, multiple sclerosis, etc. All these illnesses have increased in our population in recent years. According to Dr Haahtela, the same reasons may lie behind these chronic immune disorders.
We should not fuss so much about a few sneezes caused by pollen. When mildly allergic people develop a better tolerance, they will experience fewer symptoms.
“We talk about civilisation diseases. Lifelong nuisances have increased. They impair people’s ability to function and are expensive for the society,” he summarises.
Hardly any
allergies in Karelia
For ten years now, Dr Haahtela has been leading a research project that studies people and living conditions in Karelia. Based on the research data, on the Russian side of the border only two per cent of children are allergic to birch pollen, while 26 per cent of children have this allergy on the Finnish side.
It is possible that the materially poor Russian Karelia can offer a solution for the problem of controlling allergies and chronic immune diseases.
“We have studied home dust and drinking water, and we are trying to find out what the people in the region are exposed to. We are trying to find microbes that could work like an allergy vaccine,” Dr Haahtela explains.
“We are continually gaining more understanding of microbes or parts of them that could prevent allergies. In future we may have new ways of making up for our missing contact with the nature. Nevertheless, such means are only poor imitations that cannot fully rectify the situation."
How can we
prevent allergies?
As mentioned above, avoidance is not a recommended means of prevention. Instead, we should improve our contact with the nature.
“Avoidance may lead to isolation and make life difficult. In the worst case, dangerous reactions can catch us by surprise when we are exposed to an allergen by mistake. This can happen with food, for example,” Dr Haahtela warns.
He says that according to study results, being in contact with livestock and unpasteurised milk protects against allergies.
“We can improve our contact with the nature by spending time at the summer cottage, hiking or growing vegetables, for example. Gardening and scouting are good hobbies in this respect. To put it pointedly, we should take children’s shoes off in June and not put them on until August."
“We should take children’s shoes off in June and not put them on until August."
Probiotic products can also help, because they balance the microbes in the alimentary tract.
Are we changing,
and which way?
The human body may already be adapting to an urban environment. Today, the most vigorous increase in allergies is seen in countries that are strongly improving their standard of living, such as China and India.
“In England, for example, the figures have levelled. The epigenetic system built on genes adapts to the urban environment. There is a risk that an adapted body may no longer be able to function in any other but urban environment. We may start catching unexpected illnesses in other environments," Dr Haahtela ponders.
People who live in the city and have lost their contact with the nature could be condemned to urban life in order to avoid allergies.
Allergy control guidelines were developed
In allergic diseases, prevention of periods of exacerbation is the key for reducing the allergy burden on the population and healthcare services. This is why Allergy control guidelines were developed in the Finnish National Allergy Programme 2008–2018 for eight allergy symptoms: asthma, pediatric asthma, allergic rhinitis, allergic conjunctivitis, atopic eczema, hives/urticaria, food allergy and anaphylaxis. These guidelines were developed for healthcare professionals, so that they know what to look at when they are checking the patient’s condition and monitoring the efficiency of treatment.
The Allergy control guidelines were published in spring 2010 in the form of a handy card. It also includes first aid instructions for anaphylaxis and interpretation instructions for the skin-prick test. The experts in the allergy programme thanked Orion for good co-operation in the development of this important tool for the healthcare personnel.
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Text Else Turunen | Photographs iStockphoto and the Finnish Allergy and Asthma Federation