Do you have a Sniffly Allergy? Your Funny Nose Fungus Could Be the Culprit

Come spring, many of us will be suffering from seasonal allergies. Scientists have recently identified some potentially key differences between people who have runny nose allergies and those who don’t, and it has to do with nasal fungi.

People with allergic rhinitis and asthma have different fungal communities in their noses than people without symptoms, an international team of researchers said. Their findings are detailed on December 17 to learn published in the magazine Frontiers in Microbiologymay have important applications for future allergy and asthma treatments.

“We showed that allergic rhinitis samples exhibit a significantly higher fungal diversity and a different fungal community structure compared to healthy controls,” said Luis Delgado from the University of Porto, who participated in the study. Frontiers in Microbiology statement. Allergic rhinitis is the medical term for allergy symptoms such as stuffy or runny nose, sneezing, itching and inflammation of the nasal membranes.

“This may indicate that allergic rhinitis increases the diversity and alters the composition of the upper airway microbiome,” Delgado said. Allergic rhinitis is often associated with asthma, which involves inflammation and blocked airways. Researchers suggest that allergic rhinitis and asthma may be two aspects of the same underlying condition.

The team, including researchers from George Washington University, took nasal swabs from 215 patients in addition to 125 healthy people from an immunology and asthma clinic in Porto, Portugal. Of the patients from the clinic, 155 had both allergic rhinitis and asthma, 47 had only allergic rhinitis, and 12 had only asthma.

They then sequenced the DNA of the fungi from the nasal swabs and “detected common fungi known as allergenic or opportunistic pathogenic fungi in humans,” Delgado said.

“This confirms what is already known for bacteria at the fungal level, that the nasal cavity is a major reservoir for opportunistic pathogens that can cause allergic rhinitis and asthma,” the researchers said in the study. Although these pathogenic fungi were detected in all samples, Delgado and colleagues found that the noses of clinic patients had a richer and more diverse fungal community than that of healthy individuals. In addition, the team noted evidence that fungi from patients with both respiratory diseases affected the immune environment of the nose.

Perhaps most importantly, they found an abundance of 5-aminoimidazole ribonucleotide—a chemical compound associated with energy metabolism and DNA synthesis—in the noses of patients with both respiratory diseases. The scientists suggest that with further research, this potential association may lead future therapeutics to target AIR for the treatment or diagnosis of odor allergy and asthma.

The team plans to conduct follow-up studies, giving hope to the hundreds of millions of people who tell their friends it really happened. just allergies they lay on a napkin each time.