Hay fever: nose test predicts severity of symptoms

Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.

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Spring is often a time of suffering for pollen allergy sufferers: the urge to sneeze, runny nose and watery eyes are troublesome for them. Some non-allergic people are also sensitive to the flying plant dust. How severe the symptoms will be can in future be predicted using a nasal swab - even before the first pollen begins to fly.

Immune messengers as biomarkers

A team led by Mehmet Gökkaya from the UNIKA-T research association accompanied allergy sufferers and non-allergy sufferers for a year. During this time, the subjects kept an online diary of their symptoms. Blood samples and nasal swabs were also taken from them on a regular basis. It was shown that the later severity of the symptoms can be predicted on the basis of the occurrence and concentration of the body's own immune messenger substances IL-8 and IL-33 as well as the antibodies sIgG4 and sIgE.

Recognize severely affected people early

"By predicting the severity of nasal symptoms, we could better identify those with the disease who would benefit most from treating the underlying causes," says Gökkaya. The only causal treatment option for pollen allergy is currently desensitization. During the pollen-free season, allergy sufferers are regularly injected initially with small and later larger amounts of the allergy trigger so that the body learns to tolerate them.

Stop the development of allergies

The biomarkers can also be used to understand the process of allergy development in non-allergic people, says Gökkaya. At best, an allergy can be prevented in advance on the basis of such knowledge.

The researchers also hope to use the biomarkers to understand the processes that caused the symptoms of the disease. “That would be a possible starting point for the development of new drugs,” says the scientist.

Hay fever is the most common allergic disease in Germany. 15 percent of adult German citizens suffer from it.

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