A study suggests that early exposure to weed pollen may raise a child’s risk of developing asthma.
According to a study that was published in the European Respiratory Journal, children who grow up in urban areas and are exposed to pollen from trees and weeds are more likely to develop respiratory conditions like asthma.
Urban green spaces reduce air pollution exposure, encourage physical activity in children, and provide good exposure to a variety of microbiota, all of which may contribute to a child’s immune system development. However, they can also trigger the onset of childhood asthma. Fortunately, trees’ canopy can help lessen this effect to some extent.
“We discovered that the canopy of trees provides some protection against youngsters developing asthma. Lead author Éric Lavigne, an adjunct professor in the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Medicine’s School of Epidemiology and Public Health, notes that this protective effect disappears with increased exposure to weed pollen.
In order to find instances of pediatric asthma between birth and age six, researchers used the Ontario ASTHMA cohort database and examined data collected over an eight-year period. Among the 214,000 mother-child pairs that were part of the trial, just over 13 percent had a diagnosis of childhood asthma.
Within a 250-meter radius of the child’s birth postal code, researchers used the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) in addition to estimates of tree canopy to measure environmental exposure.
The unexpected results demonstrate that the creation of green areas in urban settings reduces the protection provided by tree canopies and increases exposure to pollen.
The public should be aware of the impact trees have on cities, including the effects of pollen on children’s respiratory health, especially if it raises their chance of developing asthma, according to Lavigne, who notes that there is a growing emphasis on boosting urban greenery.
