What does gut health have to do with hay fever or seasonal allergies? Probably a good deal more that you might think. Allergies and hay fever are an inappropriate defensive response to pollen and other substances.

According to Dr. Joseph Mercola, “Besides being associated with inflammatory bowel diseases like crohn’s, ulcerative colitis, or celiac disease, leaky gut can also be a contributing factor to allergies.”

Pollen can be extremely irritating. Your body wants to rid itself of irritants, so when you’re exposed, you may sneeze to blow it out. Or produce mucus to rinse your sinuses. Or even develop a tickle so that you grab a tissue to blow your nose. This isn’t an allergy, it is your body getting rid of unwanted substances.

Frequently, hayfever and asthma problems are caused by food allergies. Food allergies begin in the gut. When your intestinal lining loses integrity, it allows incompletely digested food particles into your bloodstream. Your immune system doesn’t recognize these large particles as nutrients, so it treats it like an invader, attacks it, then disposes it. Next, your immune system creates antibodies to those particles. Antibodies allow your immune system to quickly identify and attack these substances if they appear again.

Dr. Mercola states that “about  one third of seasonal allergy sufferers have an oral allergy syndrome.” Your immune system can be fooled by similar looking proteins. If a pollen molecule is structurally similar to a food molecule you are already allergic to, your immune system will look at the protein molecule and attack it.”

The most common foods associated with allergic symptoms include:

• Eggs, milk, peanuts, tree nuts, soy, wheat, fish, and shellfish.

If you suffer from asthma or allergies, here are some things you can do to calm down your immune system:

1. Do an elimination diet to get rid of the most common causes. Do this diet for at least 10 days.

2. Take fish oil for its anti-inflammatory effects.

3. Take extra zinc. You can take Zinc Citrate 30mg twice daily.

4. Take a good probiotic. I use MEGA sporebiotic 1 tablet twice daily.

Doing the above may not cure your allergies but it can reduce your symptoms. However, the most important thing you can do to reduce your symptoms is search for the root cause.