• Posted August 9, 2024

Certain Pollens Worse for Triggering Asthma Attacks

Pollen is a known trigger for seasonal allergies and asthma, but new research suggests that certain plant species release pollen that are especially tough on asthmatics.

Species-specific pollen alerts could help keep people with asthma safe, the Cornell University researchers reasoned.

“Even though the percent of asthma-related emergency department visits associated with pollen overall was only a few percent on an annual basis, at certain times of year when particular types of pollen were spiking, we sometimes saw up to almost 20% of visits were due to pollen,” said study lead author Daniel Katz. He's an assistant professor at Cornell's School of Integrative Plant Science Soil and Crop Sciences.

His team tracked nearly 175,000 emergency department visits recorded by the Texas Department of State Health Services between 2015 and 2020.

They focused on people living within 15 miles of one of eight pollen monitoring stations.

Viruses and pollen can each help trigger an asthma attack, Katz noted.

“Sometimes the timing of when viruses were prevalent changed,” he said in a Cornell news release, “and sometimes the timing of when pollen was in the air changed. So, because of this natural variability, we were able to better untangle what was contributing to these asthma-related emergency department visits.”

Pollen from one species of tree, the Ashe juniper, was a clear culprit in exacerbating asthma, the study found. In Central Texas, the tree is more prevalent in some cities than others, creating pollen hot spots.

“We ended up finding that some of the cities had these spikes in asthma-related emergency department visits in January, when that species releases its pollen, whereas cities outside its primary range did not have corresponding spikes,” Katz said.

People with asthma can have reactions to numerous pollen types, of course. But Katz is working "to develop publicly available pollen forecasts that incorporate remote sensing and atmospheric dispersion and plant ecology."

The aim is to better help folks prepare for days when a pollen they are especially sensitive to is peaking.

The findings will be published in the Sept. 15 issue of Environmental Research.

More information

Find out more about asthma at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

SOURCE: Cornell University, news release, Aug. 7, 2024