More trees, open spaces and grass facilitate easy movement of pollen in the air, giving rise to asthma attacks, say doctors

Did you know the green surroundings and clean environs of the City Beautiful that you are so proud of could do any harm to your health? It can, if you are asthmatic.

With around 200 cases of asthma coming to the PGI OPDs each week — some of them new cases of allergy diagnosed among children — doctors say it is a general observation that more trees, open spaces and grass lead to an easy movement of pollen in the air, which gives rise to asthma attacks.

“A clean environment plays deterrent in the spread of many diseases, but it is different with asthma. We have observed that in cleaner places like Chandigarh, pollen spreads faster due to trees and grass,” says Prof S K Jindal, head of the Department of Pulmonary Medicine, PGI.

He says while pollution aggravates the allergy, so does greenery.

The point is driven home with the fact that the incidence of asthma in Chandigarh is at par or a shade more than the national average.

Against the entire country’s figure that hovers around 2 to 2.5 per cent, experts say, approximately 2.5 to 3 per cent people suffer from asthma in Chandigarh.

Nearly 40,000 people are asthmatic in the city, according to various studies, including those of the PGI, say the experts.

The changing weather in the months of March, April and the first half of May witnesses the maximum number of asthma patients reporting to doctors. The cases subside when the summers peak by end of May and June.

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