Your Seasonal Allergies Have a Year-Round Cause!

‘Tis the season for sniffles, itchy and watery eyes, and a scratchy throat. 

We often think of this annual parade of seasonal allergy symptoms to be just a rite of spring (or late summer).  But is it really that your immune system decides to go haywire only once or twice a year?  Could it be that something is causing an immune imbalance even before your seasonal allergy symptoms begin?

What is an Allergy?

An allergy is a type of immunological reaction to a foreign substance called an allergen that would otherwise be relatively harmless.  The immune system sees the allergen as harmful to the body and creates antibodies to neutralize it.

The primary antibody made by the immune system to fight these allergens is called immunoglobulin E (IgE).  Once the IgE attaches onto the allergen, it forms a complex that can interact with certain components of the immune system called mast cells.

When this happens, the mast cells release histamine, a chemical that causes the runny nose, itchy eyes, and general nastiness that we know as seasonal allergies.

Symptoms of seasonal allergies arise from an immunological reaction to environmental allergens, like tree pollen, grass pollen, and fungal spores.  You may get a similar reaction from other factors in the environment, like pet dander, mould, dust, and even foods.

Sometimes these reactions can occur year-round, not just seasonally, and are called “perennial allergies”.   Allergy symptoms can range from being a mild nuisance to causing life-threatening reactions.  The real question is “why does the immune system react to these substances that are essentially harmless?”

Primed Immune System

It’s estimated that approximately 70-80% of your immune system is located in your digestive tract.  This is because your gut, like your skin, is exposed to the external environment.

It acts as a barrier to keep bacteria, fungi, and other potentially harmful substances out of your body.   But your gut also has to allow you to absorb your nutrients.

To facilitate absorption, the intestinal wall is only one cell layer thick in some places.  This makes it extremely vulnerable to damage.  So, your immune system has to do the heavy lifting to keep potentially disease-causing organisms in check.

When stress and other factors cause your digestion to weaken, some of your food is only partially broken down.  When this undigested food arrives in your small intestine, the immune system sees it as a foreign substance, rather than the collection of harmless food particles that it is.

Your immune system may mount an attack, using antibodies, against these particles (now called “antigens”), which may cause an inflammatory reaction in your gut.  This inflammation can damage the gut barrier, allowing some of those antigen-antibody complexes to sneak past its defenses and get into your blood.

Circulating antigen-antibody complexes can contribute to a state of inflammation in your entire body, making you more susceptible to skin eruptions, sinus and nasal congestion, joint inflammation, asthma, autoimmune conditions, and seasonal and perennial allergy symptoms.

This process of a broken down intestinal barrier that leads to systemic health problems is commonly known as “Leaky Gut Syndrome”.

Harmful bacteria and fungi, which are normally present in very small numbers in your gut, feed on the undigested food particles.  This causes their colonies to grow.  As their numbers increase, they release toxins that can further damage the gut barrier.

Gut Healing

The key to preventing your immune system from overreacting to environmental allergens is to heal the gut barrier.

The first thing to do is an elimination-challenge of potentially immune-triggering foods.  Take gluten, dairy, eggs, and, possibly other foods out of your diet for a period of time, usually 2-3 weeks.  This allows your digestive system to work on more easily digestible food and prevents your immune system from causing inflammation in your gut.

At the end of the elimination period, reintroduce the foods individually and pay close attention to any reactions you may experience.  Reactions can range from digestive disturbances, like bloating and diarrhea, to aggravation of existing symptoms, like those caused by allergies.

Once you identify the offender, you might need to remove it for a longer period, up to several months, to allow the gut enough time to heal.

If the results from the food elimination-challenge are unclear or for those who prefer to bypass this somewhat lengthy process, food sensitivity blood screening may offer useful information.  These tests can be used to look for true allergies to foods, which are mediated by the IgE antibody.

True food allergies are uncommon, however.

The tests can also detect what are known as “sensitivities” to foods.  Food sensitivities are usually mediated by a different type of antibody, called IgG.  Research is still lacking on whether IgG food reactions detected by this type of test correlate to environmental or seasonal allergies. Associations have been found between IgG levels and other conditions, including migraine headaches.

Overall, there is some dispute over whether these blood tests are accurate.

In my opinion, it is best to put these tests in their proper context of the overall clinical picture.  The gold standard is the elimination-challenge diet.

Further, nutrients, like L-glutamine, omega 3 fats, and zinc and herbs such as slippery elm and marshmallow help to heal the gut lining.  Probiotic supplements that include colonizing strains of beneficial bacteria, like Lactobaccilus acidophilus and Bifidobacterium species, help to control the harmful bacteria and to keep the local immune system happy.

Detoxifying the body, especially the liver, is also an important part of removing the antibody-antigen immune complexes that set the stage for allergies.

When dealing with seasonal allergies, or any other allergies for that matter, it’s important to consider all of the underlying factors that contribute to them.  Some methods of testing can be helpful to identify potentially aggravating foods.

Make sure to consult a qualified health practitioner for individual guidance on how best to treat you and your allergies.

Until next time, this is Dr. Pat Nardini, ND, putting “Your Wellness First!”