Climate change, environment and allergy.

Climate change with global warming is a physicometeorological fact that, among other aspects, will also affect human health. Apart from cardiovascular and infectious diseases, allergies seem to be at the forefront of the sequelae of climate change. By increasing temperature and concomitant increased CO(2) concentration, plant growth is affected in various ways leading to prolonged pollination periods in the northern hemisphere, as well as to the appearance of neophytes with allergenic properties, e.g. Ambrosia artemisiifolia (ragweed), in Central Europe. Because of the effects of environmental pollutants, which do not only act as irritants to skin and mucous membranes, allergen carriers such as pollen can be altered in the atmosphere and release allergens leading to allergen-containing aerosols in the ambient air. Pollen has been shown not only to be an allergen carrier, but also to release highly active lipid mediators (pollen-associated lipid mediators), which have proinflammatory and immunomodulating effects enhancing the initiation of allergy. Through the effects of climate change in the future, plant growth may be influenced in a way that more, new and altered pollens are produced, which may affect humans.