Japan is gripped by mass allergies. A 1950s project is to blame

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260515-the-1950s-blunder-which-causes-mass-hay-fever-in-japan

by ranit • 2 months ago

365 161 2 months ago

Interesting. I noticed that many people have hay fever in Japan, but I always just assumed it was genetic or something. I wonder if living there for a long time will make you more sensitive to pollen

mc3301• 2 months ago

Lots of people I know who moved here as adults have developed pollen allergies over the years. Some after a 2 or 3 years, some after 10.

komali2• 2 months ago

I'd been wondering why my allergies go nuts every time I visit Japan, but never really suffered in other Asian countries. Cool to know now.

Upside is I discovered the trick of just taking fexofenadine every single day which had the side effect of solving my chronic sinus infections.

petesergeant• 2 months ago

My quality of life is notably better from daily fexofenadine vs what I think was low-level allergies that I developed in my 20s to pets, dust, etc

timr• 2 months ago

As someone who has suffered from hay fever for my entire life, and also lived in many different locations, almost every move came with a 2-3 year reprieve from my symptoms while my body "discovered" the fun new local allergens.

IAmBroom9• 2 months ago

Same.

tidenly• 2 months ago

I got hayfever on my 3rd year of living here, and it seems like quite a common pattern among immigrants I've noticed. I have hayfever back in the UK too, but I guess I didn't have a Cedar allergy - so it took time to develop.

Markoff2• 2 months ago

I would assume it has more to do with less exposition to hay/pollen in urban areas, for instance in years in Beijing I've had hardly allergies since it is not exactly green, though I went to parks, but here in Prague right now with everything blooming it's nuts.

Actually now that I think about it never head really problems with allergies even in Southeast Asia, though I was in very green areas, maybe humidity helps as well?

tpm2• 2 months ago

I think the humidity has to play a role in that. Very dry air is not good for the nose even without allergies. This year the spring is very dry and also quite cold in Central Europe which makes things worse.

mathieuh• 2 months ago

It’s known that repeated exposure to allergens can cause allergic symptoms in people previously without them. For example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_fancier%27s_lung https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmer%27s_lung

I actually seemed to grow out of hay fever when I was in my early 20s. Perhaps coincidentally this is also around the time I developed an allergy to cannabis from overuse. Wonder if they’re related somehow.

IAmBroom9• 2 months ago

Poison ivy/oak sensitivity varies with lifetime exposure. On rare occasions, it is inverse: careful exposure can sometimes lead to resistance. More commonly: you get more sensitive over your lifetime, and some "once immune" people end up catastrophically changing due to incautious exposure.

It's complicated.

bobthepanda• 2 months ago

it's a bit of a balance. based on this advice, there was a long time recommendation to avoid giving young children peanuts. however, this advice was rescinded after it turned out to increase peanut allergies.

jdshaffer• 2 months ago

Yes. I developed hay fever after living here in Japan for a couple years. Was fine the first few years, though it was amusing to watch "yellow clouds of pollen" being blown from the trees with random gusts of wind. Now it's not so amusing. My car windows are dusted with a new layer of "light yellow" every couple days now (in season).

zeafoamrun• 2 months ago

It's super easy to be allergic to cedar pollen because it is such a fine pollen. I developed a cedar pollen allergy within a couple years of moving from somewhere with no cedar to a heavily forested area with cedar. No other allergies to anything, I don't think I'm particularly prone. I tried doing the allergy shots for it for a while but it didn't seem to do much. What works is staying inside with the house sealed up and air filters running, or just getting the hell out of town for a month+.

expedition32• 2 months ago

Airconditioning 24/7 everywhere makes people weak is my theory.

pezezin• 2 months ago

I have been living in Japan for almost 8 years now, and I didn't have any allergy ever until a month ago when all of sudden it hit me like a hammer. Good god was it painful...

themaninthedark• 2 months ago

Sample size of 1, for a couple years in Japan had no issue but then hit like a truck.

I have allergies to ragweed and didn't have spring allergies before that. Now back in the US and have spring allergies as well.

pjc50• 2 months ago

Japan being 68% forest is an astounding stat.

vkou• 2 months ago

75% of it is mountains, and not exactly inhabited.

Schlagbohrer• 2 months ago

The nation has also had declining population (hence deflationary housing) for years

Markoff2• 2 months ago

Still behind Finland (73.7%) and Sweden (68.7%) though and Laos (71.6%) as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_forest_ar...

Y-bar• 2 months ago

I don’t consider that a good Wikipedia article because it does a bad job distinguishing between natural forests and mono-/bicultural plantations of which there are vast areas of here. It’s quite like calling wheat fields ”grasslands”. Both fundamentally lack biodiversity.

sandworm101• 2 months ago

Not really for a mountain island. Being near the coast means increased moisture and wind, which hits mountains to make rain. Take a japanese-sized slice off the coast of most countries and you will find lots of forrest. Think the pacific northwest, or the bits of hawaii not covered in lava. Then compare parts of the australian coast with no mountains.

PyWoody2• 2 months ago

Maine is 89.46% [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_cover_by_state_and_terr...

saagarjha• 2 months ago

Yeah but Maine is not really known for miles of urban sprawl

Tade02• 2 months ago

Maine has less than a tenth of Japan's population density.

PyWoody2• 2 months ago

Sorry, I can't edit it now but I just meant it as a neat fact and not a comparison.

sl-1• 2 months ago

Would not count it as forest, but plantation, if it is heavily managed.

lloydatkinson• 2 months ago

Only two types of tree? Even in the 1970's surely that should have been cause for concern.

Mashimo• 2 months ago

This might have something to do with it:

When the sugi and hinoki forests were first planted in the 1950s and 60s, they weren't meant to stand forever. At the time, it was assumed they would be gradually cut down and replanted over time, as had been the case before the war. But as Japan's economy boomed in the late 60s and 70s, major cities like Kobe and Tokyo grew rapidly, and it ended up being cheaper to import wood from other countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia.

thaumasiotes2• 2 months ago

I don't get the relevance of "major cities grew rapidly". That can only mean that demand for wood spiked. There's no way it can cause local wood to become less competitive with imported wood.

flohofwoe3• 2 months ago

Hmm, most German forests are also vast monoculture 'tree farms' and have been for the last 250 years (also caused by large scale deforestation in the centuries before). In the Ore Mountains we also have those yellow clouds of pollen coming off spruce trees every few years, covering everything with a thin yellow dust layer, yet I'm not aware that the number of people with pollen allergies is exceptionally high (oth, maybe it was 200 years ago and by now the population has become immune, or maybe the tree pollen in Japan is just more aggressive...).

alphabeta3r56• 2 months ago

Germany has half the percentage of forest as Japan

thrownthatway• 2 months ago

Context:

Germany, area 357,022 km2 (137,847 sq mi) water 1.27%

Japan, area 377,975 km2 (145,937 sq mi), water 1.4%

flohofwoe3• 2 months ago

On average sure, but there are regions in Germany with both high amount of forest areas and fairly high population density (e.g. Ore Mountain region up to 50% forest area and more than 200 people/km^2).

iLoveOncall• 2 months ago

Hayfever allergy rates are growing around the whole world, Germany included.

postepowanieadm• 2 months ago

Spruce is also a problem in Poland, especially southern. Leaf trees have been replaced with "fast growing" spruce over a hundred years ago.

idiomaddict• 2 months ago

I moved to Germany as an adult from a completely separate biome, and I’ve got terrible problems with allergies I never had in my home country

pelasaco2• 2 months ago

Yes. I relate myself with that. If i am in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Poland, no issues.. in Germany, i have terrible problems with allergies too.

cluoma• 2 months ago

Same here. Some of the worst seasonal allergies I've ever had was while living in Germany. I'm not sure what exactly was responsible; my guess at the time was some sort of grass but I don't know for sure.

ajmurmann• 2 months ago

I wonder to what degree it's about what you are used to. I grew up in Germany and never had allergies. However, after a few years in the Pacific Northwest I developed seasonal allergies that get worse every year.

efesak• 2 months ago

The spruce and other local conifers (I live by the Bohemian Forest/Bayerischer Wald) have pollen that seems to be low allergenic by design. I know a lot of people who are allergic to birch or weed pollen, but not to spruce.

sidewndr46• 2 months ago

By design? Who designed the pollen in those trees?

INTPenis3• 2 months ago

Pollen allergies have definitely skyrocketed in Sweden. We used to be able to sit in an office and work all year without hearing people sniffle and sneeze.

Now it's like an epidemic, at least half the office is affected.

reeredfdfdf• 2 months ago

Probably we can blame higher hygiene standards, or some other environmental factor for it. Forests haven't changed much in past decades.

Here in Finland I've never been affected by any kind of tree pollen at all, but somehow timothy grass pollen gives me horrible symptoms, forcing me to take antihistamine most of the summer. I lived my childhood near farmland and forests, so definitely got exposed to both forms of pollen at early age.

markus_zhang3• 2 months ago

I kinda suspect it was the Covid. I didn’t have allergic reactions until I was infected with Covid. I don’t have proof though.

Xmd5a• 2 months ago

"why do you sneeze, we don't do that Germany"

soni96pl• 2 months ago

My aunt in Poland has terrible allergies now because of yellow pollen from spruce, but I'm not sure how that translates to larger population, other than it does happen

jeltz• 2 months ago

Spruce allergy is a thing but it is rare. Only a few unlucky people suffer from it.

dathinab• 2 months ago

one one had Japan seem to have quite bad luck with the specific tree(s) mass planted

but also on the other hand in Germany problems with allergies are very common and a pretty big deal for many people, it's just that we got used to it

but also while Germany has not-very-diverse "tree farms" for a very long time, the level of monoculture got way worse in the last 70-100 years AFIK, especially after WW2 the only way to cope with the extreme high demand was to mostly plant very fast growing trees. I.e. mostly spruce and pine.

Idk. if allergies got worse due to this and we just didn't notice because of having so much bigger problems (like many cities lying in ashes) or if Germany always had similar bad allergy problems. But this WW2 induced increase in monoculture is still a huge problem even ignoring allergies as this made German forests especially susceptible to things like pests and adding stress from climate change has lead to mass dying of trees in some regions.

zeristor• 2 months ago

In Germany I understand the non-native trees in the warmer climate are succumbing to beetles, and dying out.

I understand that they're being replanted by more native species.

flohofwoe3• 2 months ago

Yes true, especially the Harz mountains currently look like a post-apocalyptic wasteland (also visible on Google Maps), it will take decades to regrow with more diverse and climate resistant tree types, but worth it (compared to reforesting with another layer of fast growing trees of the same type).

IAmBroom9• 2 months ago

Pollen can be broadly separated into airborne and not-airborne.

Ragweed pollen is light enough to be borne miles by wind. Goldenrod pollen is too heavy for that, but is sticky, and is carried on fur and feathers. Ironically, people blame the showy goldenrod blooms for allergies, although they likely have never had goldenrod pollen in their breathing passages - while lowly, hiding ragweed unleashes millions of barbed pollens spores upon their breathing passages. (Ragweed flowers are small and green - you can stare at a plant and not realize it's blooming!)

Likewise: the sap of poison ivy is strongly allergenic; the sap of maple trees almost never, due to reactivity with immune systems. Americans are likely to be exposed to both.

So, in short: there are plants that are potential allergy-sources, and others that are not.

indoordin0saur3• 2 months ago

Some trees pollen causes allergies, other tree pollen does not. Peanuts frequently produce allergic reactions, macadamia nuts rarely do.

sajithdilshan• 2 months ago

In Berlin the situation is horrible. For the past few weeks the pollen mixed with rain water looks like a yellow chemical spill on the side of the roads. Also it gets worse depending on the wind as well because most of the pollen from nearby forests in Brandenburg ends up in Berlin as well.

I grew up in a tropical country and never ever had any allergies in my life but in Berlin if I step outside with taking anti-allergy pills, that would be the death of me

closetkantian• 2 months ago

I first read about this in The Emptiness of Japanese Affluence by Gavin McCormick. Really good read.

cyberpunk• 2 months ago

wow 170 euros on amazon.de :/

imp0cat• 2 months ago

So, is it 170€ good?

dv_dt3• 2 months ago

Hmm, I'm also wondering about studies about overly sanitized environments for children being correlated with higher allergy rates.

I guess poking around for a good representative study, it's actually low diversity of microbial exposure, not "cleaning" per-se that is correlated - e.g this is one reason why households with dogs have lower allergy rates. A monoculture of certain tree species also implies less microbial diversity.

DANmode• 2 months ago

It can go the other direction, too: exposure to moldy home environments gave me (now resolved) food sensitivities, dust allergies, pet-associated allergies, etc.

You can definitely undertrain, or overwhelm, the immune system if not cautious!

Tangurena22• 2 months ago

Don't underestimate the amount of cockroach debris present in a modern home. There's a positive correlation between asthma and in-home roach population.

Terr_• 2 months ago

I'd like to preemptively draw a line between two different kinds of hypothesis when it comes to hygiene:

1. The immune system is not being exposed enough to wild or even infectious content, and it needs more threats to fight off.

2. ("Old Friends") The immune system is not being exposed enough to commensal or even symbiotic organisms that we co-evolved with, throwing off its calibration and tuning.

I instinctively prefer the second, the first seems a little too simple, like some some scaled-down version of "tough love" and "spare the rod[-bacteria], spoil the child."

timschmidt2• 2 months ago

An excellent distinction to make. Life however often says "Why not both? And 11 more you'd have never thought of. And one that seems impossible just for fun."

If it's possible, and it can force a function up a gradient, life is almost certainly doing it somewhere.

Tade02• 2 months ago

Regarding the second point: ...or parasitic.

There's a hypothesis that says the incidence of allergies correlates inversely with the incidence of certain common parasites, like the tapeworm or the pinworm. Additionally, nowadays pregnant women are advised to avoid getting infected with toxoplasmosis due to the birth defects it causes, but it wasn't until the 70s when the last route of transmission was found and explained.

What if the body is just looking for parasites where there are none?

EDIT: I also lean on the second, as the first doesn't explain why allergies can come and go seemingly without reason.

Personally currently I'm allergic to some unindentified plant and it's a different one than back when I was a child. Meanwhile my child is right now experiencing "my" childhood allergy season - with similar severity at that.

moritzwarhier• 2 months ago

I wonder why we focus so much on this claim, when there are many studies giving other plausible explanations.

Living less than 75 m from the main road was significantly associated with lifetime allergic rhinitis (AR), past-year AR symptoms, diagnosed AR, and treated AR. The distance to the main road (P for trend=0.001), the length of the main road (P for trend=0.041), and the proportion of the main road area (P for trend=0.006) had an exposure-response relationship with allergic sensitization. A strong inverse association was observed between residential proximity to the main load and lung function, especially FEV1, FEV1/FVC, and FEF25-75.

Effect of Traffic-Related Air Pollution on Allergic Disease: Results of the Children's Health and Environmental Research - PMC - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4446634/

The most serious issue might be the growing trend in sensitization to pollen, especially in urban settings (7, 8); in fact, people living near heavy traffic are affected with pollen-induced respiratory allergies more than those in rural districts (9). The sudden rise in environmental pollutant levels due to industrial development and urban motor vehicle traffic has affected air quality and consequently, the severity and mortality from allergic diseases (10). Some evidence suggests that air pollution might cause new cases of asthma as well (9, 11).

Interaction Between Air Pollutants and Pollen Grains: The Role on the Rising Trend in Allergy - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5941124/

This doesn't mean that exposure to biodiversity doesn't play a role, but when it comes to explaining the differences between rural and urban settings, this explanation seems more plausible to me than the hand-wavey claims about people supposedly cleaning their apartments more in cities.

Personally, I have seasonal asthma associated with pollen, since childhood, and I'm from a big city.

I have a much harder time walking next to a busy road in allergy season than being somewhere more rural, even when there are birch trees right in the vicinity of where I am, one of my allergenes.

It's not b/w of course though, the pollen can trigger it not only in the city. But then it's usually very mild.

My asthma is seasonal, allergy-associated, and still, the worst stressor I experience is pollution and car exhaust. Well, the worst unavoidable stressor.

Alcohol also seems to do bad things to my allergy response.

Spooky23• 2 months ago

I think you're correct.

I live off on a city side street off of a major avenue in my city. Diesel soot looks (other than color) and behaves like pollen. Next week i'll be cleaning the pollen and soot particles from my porch. I personally don't suffer from allergies too bad (just headaches during peak pollen release), but my wife really does.

When I grew up in NYC, i was too young to remember allergies, but I can recall cubbies for inhalers as many of my classmates had asthma. We happened to be downwind from the Exxon refinery and Greenpoint garbage incinerator.

dv_dt3• 2 months ago

Seems like just the thing for a careful public health study to figure out a scientifically backed policy. Pollution might be a singular driving factor, or significant combined factor driving allergies. The link from pollution to asthma and lung cancer is already pretty clear and driving vehicle pollution down in neighborhoods is already a public health win independent of allergy rates anyway I think.

Tor34• 2 months ago

I grew up on a farm and was constantly exposed to all kinds of soil, vegetables, animals, trees, well forests, grasses and hay.. and I never had any kind of allergies. However, when I moved to another European country I had severe reactions to the local mosquitoes. Not that it was itching very much or anything, just that it was bleeding like crazy. I would wake up in the morning and look like I had been through an especially messy vampire attack during the night. Bloody forearms, ankles.. It took a year, and then I got used to it and stopped having any reaction whatsoever (same as in my home country). No bumps, no itching.

Then Japan.. and the same happened, with the local mosquitoes. Bleeding like hell. It took slightly longer, but I did get used to that as well, so now there are no problems.

And.. I got itchy eyes when I travelled to Japan. As I said, I've never been allergic to anything. I didn't have sneezes or the like, but it was problematic. I tried to wash my eyes with salty water every day, and I got eye drops.. this went on for several years while I kept visiting Japan (I always stayed for long periods). Last year I finally concluded that it was actually the Sakura trees.. (The Cherry Blossoms) which caused it. And this year the symptoms are close to non-existing, so I'm concluding that I'm getting used to that as well (and I have visited Sugi forests many times over the years too, and no problems there). Hopefully.

rimworld• 2 months ago

estimated 43% of the population --wow

xchip• 2 months ago

This article could have been summarized in three paragraphs.

I'm really hating this trend of diluting content by giving useless testimonials, random anecdotes and delaying the resolution of the subject as much as possible.

edent• 2 months ago

People like reading.

You could summarise all of Ender's Game in a couple of sentences but, guess what, that wouldn't be particularly pleasurable.

Not everything has to by hyper-efficient. More importantly, not everything has to be tailored specifically for you. It's OK that other people like reading long-form content.

cratermoon2• 2 months ago

Here, have a summary of In Search of Lost Time, courtesy of Wikipedia: The novel recounts the experiences of the Narrator (who is never definitively named) while he is growing up, learning about art, participating in society, and falling in love.

Hope you enjoyed it, no need to thank me.

IAmBroom9• 2 months ago

You're REALLY going to hate this one weird trick Jesus did with all of the Old Testament, then. (and preemptively, with the New Testament, too!)

OutOfHere• 2 months ago

Doesn't pollen also have to do with the "gender" of the trees? In gendered trees, male trees emit pollen and female trees intercept pollen. Not all species of trees are gendered (dioecious) but various are. If reforestation uses male trees at the expense of female, then pollen count will be higher.

Urban developers who make the mistake of using male trees, because they don't drop fruit/berries/seed pods, will make the residents suffer pollen. Sugi and hinoki apparently are not gendered -- they're monoecious.

Tangurena22• 2 months ago

Most trees (about 75%) contain both male & female flowers. Of the rest, about half are species with separate male/female trees and about half have separate male/female flowers (on the same tree).

niemandhier3• 2 months ago

“Arboreal sexism” is a similar phenomenon:

We prefer male trees in cities since they do not produce fruit that drop on the streets. The result is a much higher pollen load.

vikramkr2• 2 months ago

That's not actually a thing. Very few trees we plant have specific male vs female plants. One of the few that does that gets brought up in this context, ginko, tends to have male trees preferred because the fruit kind of reeks. Ginkgo fruit is also toxic so you really don't want masses of it getting washed into local waterways in ecosystems the tree isn't native to - not a great time for the local wildlife. A significant supermajority of all the rest of the trees that you plant in cities are gonna have male and female flowers on the same plant or male and female structures within the same flower.

dwa3592• 2 months ago

thanks for this clarification. until today i was under the impression that they planted male trees only because they looked prettier and weren't as messy as the female ones (to reduce the cleaning bill of the local municipal)

niemandhier3• 2 months ago

Cool, I did not know that this is so disputed a quasi factoid. Thanks for cleaning my brain!

Germany has “Baumkataster” which are databases for public trees in cities, they save all kind of tree metadata but gender is missing …

https://hub.arcgis.com/search?tags=baumkataster

MyHonestOpinon• 2 months ago

TIL. Trees have (biological) sex. This just blew my head. I must have been too sleepy when we saw that in high school.

BobaFloutist2• 2 months ago

It's more complicated in plants than in at least mammals. Some do, some don't, and some do and don't.

SideburnsOfDoom• 2 months ago

Trees have (biological) sex.

Some species, in some ways. It's varied and complicated

See: Monoecious, dioecious & hermaphroditic plants

https://plantura.garden/uk/green-living/knowledge/monoecious...

mr_toad2• 2 months ago

Almost every living thing except for bacteria (and viruses, which aren’t really alive) can reproduce sexually.

nelox• 2 months ago

The Melbourne epidemic thunderstorm asthma event 2016: an investigation of environmental triggers, effect on health services, and patient risk factors

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5...

pelasaco2• 2 months ago

I think its the same in Germany no? Heuschnupfen is something that got worse over the time and if i remember correct is as well related with some reforest project..

newsclues• 2 months ago

What about nuclear bombs? No effects from nuking cities?

IAmBroom9• 2 months ago

Pretty sure that effect has been well studied.

crvdgc• 2 months ago

While in Japan, I heard an urban legend that, it typically takes 5 accumulated years for a foreigner to acquire hay fever in Japan.

bschwindHN• 2 months ago

That more or less checks out, in my case. I think it started in like 4-5 years for me and it's absolutely terrible in Tokyo in the spring time. Thankfully I moved to Okinawa where they didn't plant those trees, or if they did there are much less of them.

NoImmatureAdHom• 2 months ago

The article makes the argument "there is a lot of pollen" and separately "there exist monoculture forests / tree farms" in Japan.

But what it doesn't do is:

1. Argue that the pollen is worse because of monoculture relative to polyculture forests (we could mix sugi and hinoki and...I assume net pollen would be the same?)

2. Argue that lots of pollen leads to more allergies. I mean, you might think that higher levels of exposure in childhood would lead to *fewer* people with allergies. So maybe a lack of forests in the past --> lots of people with allergies today? Why are the Japanese so allergic?

This article is bad and the author should feel bad.

pixl97• 2 months ago

Argue that lots of pollen leads to more allergies.

With pollen, particulate size tends to matter. Pine tree pollen is very rarely an allergen because the pollen grains are huge, and I believe the body catches and rejects these pretty easily. Tiny pollen grains and ones with particular shapes can get much deeper in the lungs and aggravate things more easily.

saalweachter• 2 months ago

Also, different species flower and release pollen at different times.

A monoculture forest releases all its pollen at once, instead of a fraction of it always being in flower throughout spring/summer.

anotherevan• 2 months ago

Allergies are weird. I definitely became more sensitive to hay fever after a gastric bypass.

I have a friend who for no apparent reason developed strong allergies in their sixties. Particularly to goats milk.

So much so that they will not go to a restaurant that has goat milk products (e.g.: halloumi cheese) in their kitchen due to one too many visits to the hospital emergency ward.

Tor34• 2 months ago

My father also developed allergies in his sixties. And it got worse and worse. Soon he was becoming lactose intolerant as well, and had to start with gluten-free food. He could never be near oranges, unless they were grown without pesticides - the remains on the outside was enough to trigger a reaction. Then he couldn't eat farmed salmon, though he could still eat wild salmon. But there was more and more wild fish he couldn't eat either, which did hurt a fish lover like him. And on and on it went, until he was severely limited to what he could eat and what he could get exposed to.

Then one day he noticed that the mayonnaise he enjoyed every day contained a conservation additive (an E-type, as is how they're labelled in Europe) which he knew he used to have some reaction to in the past, another food product included it and he had avoided that one since like forever. So he quit the mayonnaise when he noticed that. But what happened next was astonishing - all his allergies, lactose intolerance and everything disappeared, and not much later he didn't have any issues with anything.

goda90• 2 months ago

Every year, an area is selectively clear-cut, removing sugi, hinoki but also other invasive species like bamboo. Broadleaf trees are left, and with more sun coming through to the ground, they grow back, along with other new seedlings either planted by staff or brought by birds or animals.

In other parts of the world, some plantation -> forest projects don't remove trees but instead pull them over and leave them as logs with exposed roots. This provides new habitats for various plants and animals around the logs and the gap in the canopy. I'm curious if they've explored the impacts that approach would have.

flakiness• 2 months ago

Japanese sugi forests are too dense. I don't think they have the space to lay these logs down.

lazide• 2 months ago

A historically common way to clear certain kinds of areas in the US is to drag anchor chains with giant bulldozers. May still work?

mr_toad2• 2 months ago

Log slides are potentially lethal in steep areas too. Whole buildings can get demolished if the logs roll down the slope.

alsetmusic• 2 months ago

I was surprised to read that our allergies evolve, though perhaps I shouldn't have been. When I lived in the midwest of the USA, I hated mowing the lawn so much. I became a gunked-up mess with my sinuses packed with snot, regardless of antihistamines and (new at the time) allergy meds that presaged our present treatments.

I'd lived in the Bay Area for one or two months before a neighbor in my apartment complex knocked to ask if it was standard to not have an air conditioner in the residence (something that had surprised me as well). She said that keeping the windows open was aggravating her allergies and it was the first moment that I realized I could breathe easily through my nose. I don't know what grows where I grew up that isn't here, but getting away from it really changed my quality of life.

Severe allergies can be so intrusive that I'd consider moving out of the country if I was in the situation described in this article. But I only think that because I've experienced the effect of changing regions and experiencing a radically different outcome. If someone grew up with this being normal, they might never consider getting away. I certainly didn't think it could be better or worse if I lived someplace else.

IAmBroom9• 2 months ago

"Evolve" doesn't well describe the very real possibility that you were/are more reactive to species popular in the Midwest, but not the Bay Area.

By "evolve", I thought you mean "change within the individual over their lifetime" - which also happens. I spent time in oxygen tents as a young child; I mostly suffer from (easily treated) sinus issues as an adult.

Also, our drugs have improved mightily, but that's obviously not relevant for an increase in allergies amongst the population (separate from the above meaning of "evolve").

Edit: I guess I'm not sure what you meant by the word.

saltybytes• 2 months ago

I was surprised to not find anything about possible cures or treatments in the article.

I had bad allergies myself in my teenage years - unable to sleep for weeks - I finally sought help. The western medicine offers protein shots (similar treatment as to food allergies) but I heard good things about acupuncture. First, I was very skeptical about how needles could "help" with allergies. But about 2 months into the treatment (two sessions per week) the pollen season started. The air felt "heavy to breathe" but to my surprise I was not effected that year at all. After finishing the whole treatment I was allergy free for many years. Now I sometimes feel it on bad days with clouds of pollen hanging in humid air. My uneducated guess is, that my acupuncture treatment I received over 2 decades ago "wears off".

I wonder if others experienced similar or if I was a statistical outlier to a well shaped Gauss curve?

packetlost2• 2 months ago

My understanding is allergies can be partially managed with placebo affect (as can mild colds!) and that is likely the reason it appears to work.

BobaFloutist2• 2 months ago

I also understand that weight lifting can help reduce allergies, since the immune system is kind of a "luxury" system that cedes resources when the body is recovering from injury, and weightlifting is deliberate minor injury.

Maybe acupuncture could work through the same mechanism?

amake• 2 months ago

I live in Japan and developed an allergy to cedar pollen after I came. I started sublingual immunotherapy (a pill of concentrated pollen you dissolve under your tongue) three years ago and now can make it through the pollen season symptom-free. Supposedly you even keep the immunity after stopping the medication, though I have not tested that yet.

agos• 2 months ago

I did sublingual immunotherapy for gramineae and while the immunity does wane with years and in particularly bad years (like this one) you'll get symptoms it's still waaaaay better than before

ilivethere• 2 months ago

Medicine is another prong to the attack, with the development of new treatments to better ease the symptoms of pollen exposure. One Japanese trial, for example, showed a long-acting under-the-tongue immunotherapy tablet was were still helping alleviate symptoms two years after treatment. Other scientists have even been experimenting with genetically modified rice designed to alleviate allergy symptoms.

There is. Sorta

indoordin0saur3• 2 months ago

The article specifically mentions medical treatments.

rouvax• 2 months ago

A 1950s project is to blame

Half-way through the article: "When the sugi and hinoki forests were first planted in the 1950s and 60s, they weren't meant to stand forever. At the time, it was assumed they would be gradually cut down and replanted over time, as had been the case before the war. But as Japan's economy boomed in the late 60s and 70s, major cities like Kobe and Tokyo grew rapidly, and it ended up being cheaper to import wood from other countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia."

As often in environmental health, the cost-benefit ratio is calculated after the exposure is widespread, i.e. too late.

NooneAtAll3• 2 months ago

I don't understand what you're saying, isn't it exact opposite - too early?

by the time the 10-20 year timeline finished, situation changed enough for the plan to not be followed

pugworthy• 2 months ago

The US states of Oregon and Washington were major exporters of raw logs to Japan as well.

The 1962 Columbus Day Storm [1] fell 11.2 billion board feet of timber, which flooded the market and initiated heavy overseas demand. Exports peaked in the 80's. But when the export levels fell and old growth timber became more scarce, local economies of exporting regions took a big hit. The port of Coos Bay for example had a big downturn with lumber being the primary cargo of ships. Coos Bay is the only deep-water coastal harbor in Oregon and the largest between San Francisco and the Puget Sound.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Day_storm_of_1962

nekusar• 2 months ago

It wasn't smoke – it was AISLOP

cratermoon2• 2 months ago

The silver lining: hinoki wood has a pleasant scent and makes high quality timber. The cost is lower now with the excess coming to market. Oddly, Wikipedia calls it “slow growing”, contradicting the claim in the story it being planted to help rapidly reforest Japan.

e40• 2 months ago

I really wish the planning of trees and bushes took into account allergies.

In my area, there are a lot of trees that make my life hellish when those plants pollinate. The other day I thought I was coming down with a cold. Nope, just really bad allergies.

cloche• 2 months ago

I lived in Japan from 2011-2016 and eventually needed to move away because my allergies were so bad. Many other foreigners would say things like "I never had allergies before I came to Japan".

Unfortunately, I heard that the government previously investigated taking action but were lobbied against doing so by pharmaceutical companies that earn revenue from allergy medications.

ianferrel• 2 months ago

Mismanaged monoculture forests are one of the first examples of states seeking simplified legible solutions to managing complex ecosystems in Seeing Like a State.

groby_b• 2 months ago

And oddly, Germany has the same pollen clouds, France has the same pollen clouds, the West Coast has them. (The three places I saw this year, at least).

It's odd the BBC chose to anchor on Japan when it's really a widespread issue.

Japan is gripped by mass allergies. A 1950s project is to blame

Related Stories