Guest post by Dr Emma Beckett, Molecular Nutritionist.
Around 30% of Australian adults suffer from hay fever which results in symptoms like runny or congested nose, sneezing, and watering, scratchy eyes. What they may not know is there are tangible actions you can take daily which help to relieve the symptoms – and it may just start in your gut.
The link between your gut and hay fever
Your gut is linked to everything. Our guts don’t just digest food and absorb nutrients, they are home to a whole ecosystem of bacteria. These bacteria produce compounds are absorbed into our blood and help regulate inflammation and allergic responses like hay fever.
Hay fever and other allergies happen when our immune/inflammatory systems overreact to things like dust and pollen. It may be surprising to note that people with hay fever and allergies have different profiles of gut bacteria than people who don’t.
How to take care of symptoms of hay fever and allergies through your gut health
When our gut bacteria become unbalanced, we call this dysbiosis. Dysbiosis leads to less of the compounds that control inflammation entering the blood. There are three parts to gut health:
- Treating your gut bacteria right and avoiding excessive drinking, smoking and high fat diets that could damage them
- Eating probiotic foods like yoghurt that have live good bacteria in them
- Feeding the good gut bacteria, this means eating prebiotics like fibre cereals like All-Bran and other fibres that keep the good bacteria fed and the gut healthy
If you take care of your gut health and feed it what it needs to thrive, you’ll support the compounds which control the inflammation, which will help ease hay fever and allergy symptoms.
Foods you should eat to help with allergy and hay fever symptoms
We get prebiotics and fibre from fruits, vegetables, fibre cereals like Sultana Bran and whole grains. Eating these types of foods have been linked to lower rates of hay fever and fewer allergy symptoms.
Some foods also contain natural antihistamines like fruits and vegetables high in vitamin C, and tea, which contains a compound called epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). This compound has been shown to block the production of histamine which is part of the allergic response. Spice like chillies can also help relieve symptoms because it contains compounds like capsaicin that act as natural decongestants.
Foods to avoid
Foods that damage the gut bacteria like high calorie, high fat and high alcohol intake can increase inflammatory responses by damaging your good gut bacteria and causing weight again, which can make symptoms worse.
