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It’s Christmas tree season. Whether you’ve had a tree since the day after Thanksgiving, or you’re just about to get one, you may also be looking forward to Christmas Tree Syndrome.
This syndrome includes a special variety of hay fever and allergies that you can get from a Christmas tree.
Christmas trees already contain mold naturally, but when you chop one up and bring it into your home, you’re inviting that mold to multiply.
Pollen grains from other plants in your home can collect in the tree, and the mold on the trunks and needles can release spores into your home.
And of course, as the tree sits in your house, it will collect dust, whether it’s a fake tree or a real one.
The dust form fake trees can be especially bad. You’ve been storing that tree for a year, which means it contains a year’s worth of dust. All this dust will be dispersed when you straighten out those tree branches.
35 percent of people in the UK and US suffer increased hay fever symptoms around Christmas, and most of the problems come from these trees.
Allergy specialist Dr. Lawrence Kurlandsky discovered this syndrome, after trying to find out why most respiratory illnesses are the worst around Christmas.
When bark and needles from pine trees in his colleagues’ homes were inspected, they found 53 different types of mold. And not just your everyday mold. This is the kind of mold that causes asthma attacks and allergic reactions.
Once your tree is about two weeks old, the amount of spores in your house has increased from 800 per cubic meter to 5,000 per cubic meter.
For some people, even the smell of pine is enough to get them sneezing.
Enjoy your holiday season! Maybe just enjoy it a little further from your tree.
