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Pollen, Vital to Plant Reproduction, Creates Misery for Those Allergic to It

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BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: People who are allergic to pollen and suffer with runny noses or watery eyes -- we know of a lot of them here in the Southeast -- they know how miserable life can be this time of year. But what exactly is it about the pollen that makes you feel so awful?

Our medical correspondent, Rhonda Rowland now, with some answers here.

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RHONDA ROWLAND, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's born of love, but it makes us miserable. It is pollen.

Pollen begins on the male part of a tree or plant, called the stamen, where it grows into a tiny particle that carries its parent's genetic code.

MILDRED PINNELL, HORTICULTURIST: They're very small particles, irregularly shaped. And pollen that is windborne is very dry. It flows very freely, and individual grains fly through the air.

ROWLAND: But flying randomly on the wind is not a very precise method of reproduction. So it takes a lot of pollen for one plant to fertilize another.

PINNELL: It's estimated that for a birch such as this, each catkin, which is this single structure here, would produce about 5.5 million pollen grains, which is just an enormous amount.

ROWLAND: It's a system that works fine for plants and trees, allowing them to share genetic material and thus better adapt to their environment. But it's a system that can be brutal to people.

DR. KATHLEEN SHEERIN, ALLERGIST: People that have allergic rhinitis or hay fever rate themselves on quality-of-life scales as more affected, as feeling worse, than people with diseases that we would think would be far worse to have, like diabetes and heart disease.

ROWLAND: We can feel the effects of pollen soon after we breath it into our sinuses. It makes us feel miserable because our immune system misinterprets the pollen as an infection. To fight it off, our bodies respond with runny noses, watery eyes, sneezing and other allergy symptoms.

SHEERIN: Allergies shouldn't make you miserable. In the year 2000, we should be able to help you to be less miserable. We have a lot of medication choices. There isn't necessarily one thing that works, that is the best drug. It's what works best for you.

ROWLAND: Over-the-counter and prescription medicines counteract the effects of pollen. If that's not enough, allergy shots can retrain the immune system.

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ROWLAND: Sometimes nothing works and allergy sufferers must simply endure. There are new drugs in development that may help, and they could be on the market in, say, the next five years.

But Bill, for the rest of us, pollen is a good thing, giving us those beautiful trees and flowers.

HEMMER: Thanks for the great news.

Hey, Rhonda, you mentioned about things coming out in another five years. When you talk about research and development, is there more hope for the future, for better things?

ROWLAND: There actually is, and specifically people are excited about a new type of shot. It's called anti-IGE, and it's genetically based and it apparently goes after the symptoms before they even appear.

Another good thing about them is you maybe get these shots every -- once every two to four weeks whereas right now with current allergy shots you may have to get them several times a week for weeks at a time. So there's a lot of excitement about this new type of shot. But it's still a few years away, Bill.

HEMMER: OK, Rhonda, thank you very much. We just came through a really, really tough season here in the Southeast.

Glad that's behind us, huh?

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: I'm still sneezing.

HEMMER: Whoo. Hang in there.

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