How Humans Caused Our Own Allergies - Cheddar Explains 

So... this is the kind of toxic masculinity everyone keeps talking about?

"There would be no post-coital odor..." is not a phrase I ever would have expected to refer to trees.

So refreshing to see Ogren so willingly change his hypothesis when confronted with evidence to the contrary. Really interesting guy it seems, landscaper by trade and scientist/radical botanist for fun.

I haven't had allergies my entire life and all of a sudden i have allergies the past two years!

"People thought they had beaten nature". Never the beggining of something good...

Deep rooted American sexism: Literally

Throughout the video I was wondering why they chose to plant only male trees -which do release pollen no matter what- instead of only female ones, which do not release pollen and do not produce fruits since they wouldn't get pollinated. Then the video said it would've been bettter if they planted only female trees and now I feel like a genius botanist lol.

I'm surprised she didn't mention Dogwood trees. In spring of each year, as I worked in my parent's driveway, on motorcycles and cars, I noticed an overwhelming smell of death. At first, I thought it was from some animal that had died and was thawing out from winter, somewhere close. Found out it was my neighbor's tree. Beautiful, but stinky as hell.

"The area had around 1,800 grains of pollen..." That doesn't sound so bad "...per cubic meter of air" ... oh

Never thought I'd hear about a tree being "in heat"...

My father's case is so weird, I heard many times that pollen allergies develope because city people aren't exposed to nature as much but my Dad is terribly allergic and he grew up on a farm, I think two of his 6 siblings have a weak allergy too.

This is glossing over two huge parts of the problem: 1) anemophilous vs zoophilous or entomophilous plants, and 2) the continuing issues of overplanting. 1 - It doesn't create so much of a problem when planting male clones of trees that aren't wind-pollinated - you (mostly) don't have allergies to pollen that isn't wind-borne. The general misunderstanding of this leads to things like a lack of important pollinator food sources (like fall-blooming goldenrods) in the residential landscape because people think they might cause allergies. 2 - Monoculture is still a problem. Most cities have very low canopy diversity - if, say, 40% of the trees in the city are one of 3 wind-pollinated species, and all males, you're going to have huge pollen loads in narrow time windows. If you diversify the canopy, even still planting only males, so that no single species accounts for more than, say, 5% of the canopy, the staggered fertility times of different species means that the pollen load on any given day is lower, even if the total pollen shed in a season is the same. But increasing diversity also would likely mean decreasing the percentage of anemophilous species, so you'll get an overall reduction in total wind-borne pollen production. The idea that interspersing female trees will "catch" the pollen enough to make a difference is just silly. The amount of pollen caught by female trees is a fraction of what the male trees produce - that's why anemophilous trees adapted produce so much of it. Yes, in terms of allergies, it would likely have worked out better to go for all female trees rather than male, but the ginkgo example is a good caveat: even after years of selecting only male clones, the occasional female ginkgo still gets planted in urban environments. When it happens, the problem of rotting putrescence is mostly contained in one area, although foot traffic through the decaying fruit can track it further. Could you imagine if whole city blocks were planted with female gingkos and then one male was accidentally planted? I personally think ginkgo is a garbage ugly tree that shouldn't be planted - its form looks like it was drawn by a drunk toddler experimenting with CG rendering on a home computer in the mid-nineties... There are other compromises that people work with, like sterile clones or planting female trees whose fruit doesn't become an issue (like juniper). Ultimately, the best policy is to aim for high urban canopy diversity, and you end up with less disease spread, less canopy loss if a disease shows up, lower pollen loads, greater support for local ecology, and more visual interest.

This explains why I have more allergies when I live in town vs when I live in the country. The opposite of what I would expect.

“It affects women disproportionately? ....... Must be psychosomatic.”

Seasonal allergies were the reason that I had to leave a state that I loved. The "cedar" in central Texas was making me severely ill. Fortunately where I live now there are very few of those trees. And many, many trees that weren't planted by anyone. So there is the proper mix of everything. So far my allergies are pretty mild here. Thankfully.

I became allergic to polem like 2 years ago and always needed that nose spray, now since 2020 January I became vegan, and when I saw this video now I remember it's been almost 6 month without that spray and no allergies. I'm so happy.

I literally had to leave North Carolina, where I grew up, because of the pollen, it caused me to be miserable for months to the point where my ears would stop up and pressure would build up inside that I could not get to go away. I remember after my grandmother died, we were cleaning up her house in Raleigh, and there was a thick yellow layer of pollen all over the outside of the house, changing the color of the porch to orange from red. The pollen also affects the adjacent Southern Appalachian Mountains, and I remember seeing yellow clumps all over the surface of a small lake at a summer camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains when I was a kid. I now live further north in the Ohio River Valley, where it seems my allergies are nowhere near as bad.

I was hoping for an explanation of why some people have allergies and some people don’t. Pollen is naturally occurring. Why do some people have violent reactions to it?

My mother lives on the edge of a woodland, and she has a lot of eastern red cedar, oak, and pine that came up the natural way. None of her trees was artificially selected or planted; yet, they produce tons of pollen in spring.

Doctor gives patient antibiotics for allergies. "So that's how I lost my medical license"

I'm a human biologist and I think research concerning allergies is amazing. Over 50% of the Western world have at least one allergy. The so called hygiene hypothesis suggests that the majority of these cases might be partially explained by our frequent showering or high antibiotic use (would love to cover that in a video). It seems like the body creates infections when it is not exposed to real infections!

Selecting all female trees would just result in some other unforeseen problem. The problem is that we try to build 'perfect natural environments' for our 'great comfort'. Only natural diversity will result in 'great comfort' in the long term.

Wow this was mind-blowing for me! Thank you so much for producing it! I have suffered seasonal allergies since I was 13 years old. Received allergy shots and been desensitized twice in my life,... and it still didn't work. I've had to move to Europe in order to get away from all the pollen. I was wondering why I did so much better in Europe than the United States. This explains it! I just found your video about a year ago, and it explains so much! The ironic thing about it is my father retired from the Department of Agriculture and worked there in! He also had to move to Nevada to get away from seasonal allergies. How ironic! Thanks and keep me posted on this subject. 💝👍🌲🐝🕊🍁

The pollen in Durham NC is from pine trees that no one planted and very few are allergic to since the grain size is too large to bother humans

6:35 To be clear there was a lot of pollen because of the abundance of male trees not cause of the lack of female trees to "catch" the polen, because the pollen a female tree would remove from the air is miniscule, a puddle of water would remove at least 100 times more pollen and still be ineffective to clean the air.

Every single time humans intercede in nature's processes, we screw it up beyond measure. Example #874.

In Seattle the main pollen allergies are not to planted trees; the biggest offender is red alder. Our native poplar, P. trichocarpa, can also shed lots of pollen, and it’s so common that the whole region smells like poplar in the spring. (it’s a wonderful sweet resinous smell)

I love how this dude was willing to accept some psychobabble when his wife was suffering but needed to find an explanation when some dudes started sniffling... grief

So you tellin' me we're all breathing tree seamen? 🤔 Seems kinda sus to me man.

“How america caused its own allergies” should’ve been the title

This video has answered my question I’ve had my whole life, thank you Cheddar

This is my favorite Cheddar video. Well done!

Smh that dude didnt believe his wife and only whennhis coworkers started getting bad allergies did he take it seriously

Our grandparents did this. This is all on them. Now, it's our problem.

This is a very very very..... HUGELY important topic.//can't emphasize enough 🙏🏻

My allergies are unusually bad this year in Seattle and we're having one of the wettest springs on record. I read that pollen still hangs around even with rain. Also I have two mugo pines which have become huge pollen producers the last few years and I have noticed way more yellow dustings throughout my neighborhood than I ever remember.

We haven't "caused our own allergies"; we have exacerbated one specific allergy to pollen.

Mind blown! - I have been living in the US for the past 10 years and have had worsening allergies over the years that I did not have prior to living in the US.

This was the real Clone Wars!

Very interesting topic to cover, thanks!

I am prone to severe hay fever in springtime and early summer. I remember periods where I felt close to dying as the result of both the allergy itself and basically OD'ing on antihistamines, sometimes taking 4 times the recommended dosage. It got so bad sometimes that I basically wanted to pull out all mucosa just to end the torture. I rubbed and rubber my eyes until they hurt so badly that the pain became worse than the itch. Pain is horrible but if you truly want to torture someone cause an endless and intense itch. I wholeheartedly condone cutting most of these trees and replant with females and other species. If it were up to me the berch would go extinct entirely though. Feel free to cut a tree here and there, even if it's illegal. Just make sure to replant with something else. Besides, all that mono culture really is good for nothing and no one. My solution against this entire problem was to simply escape and move to a different area. I live in the tropics now and I've been free from any kind of allergy for over 10 years. There's actually way more vegetation over here. I even lived close to jungle forest for several years. The smells and sounds are awesome there. And best of all: not a single itch. Zip, nada. Diversity of species and sexes is what we need.

Did anyone else feel like they had allergies just watching that intro?

Thank you for this very informative video! Very useful data!

yeah, I suffer a lot from seasonal allergies. winter is my favorite season just because of the relief I get.

I had almost no allergies-until I was 25, and Atlanta experienced a 100-year cycle drought along with an unusual 103 degree heatwave that lasted about 6 weeks. The pollen was over an inch thick on the windowsills every 2-3 days (and it really clogged the vacuum cleaner).

I feel like 'how the United States caused their own allergies' would have been a better title here.

" we did thi8s to ourselves" a motto that has been there since the start and will linger to the bitter end.

Love this video! such an important aspect to the topic. This means anyone with a decent yard could help fight their local pollen issue and at least have a safe area at home....

Woah. 🤯 never really thought of trees like this. Feel like I learned so much in 12 minutes! 💖

11:15 ok, I'm listening 11:20 uh, no. "we" didn't do this. our grandparents and great-grandparents generation did this.

The Happening for real

Wow, just shows how balance is so important

As someone whos allergic to cats, dogs, pollen, plants, smells.. Exposure therapy doesn't always work. I have five cats and still need an allergy pill daily

Can we all just agree, that the background music throughout the whole video was perfect👌

I started taking vitamin D3 during the winter and my spring allergies almost totally disappeared. Its worked 3 years in a row so far.

In southwestern PA the growing season is shorter then ever before . In 2020 it was less then 110 days. There was snow on the 9th of and frost on the 13th of May and killing frost the day before the last day of summer in September.

Post coital odors.... now that phrase is seared in my mind

Imagine pollen fog. POG

Interesting and informative thank you for the video

Thank you for posting this! I have terrible allergies throughout the spring and fall. I'm going to plant more female plants from now on!

I'm a NYC tour guide who NEVER suffered from allergies until about 10 years ago. My doctor explained to me about the whole male/female thing and I was fascinated. Even included info about it on my tours--especialy when people asked me about a particular flowering tree. No need to think about it this spring. Sigh.

OMG! I have developed allergies over the last 25 years (living in NYC), after having no issues`growing up, and working in a rural area. This makes complete sense. Ugh!

A surprisingly fascinating topic

Someone: Man, Spring break was so cool! Me: *Spring Flashbacks

Large trees scattering pollen with in 30 feet of it's roots? WHAT?!? I've watched sheets of pollen carried off the native white pines around my house into the wood edge almost 100 yards away. Pollen is know known to travel hundreds of miles (up to thousands). Please fact check. Also, those native pines cover everything with a thick coat of yellow pollen every year- those clips could have been filmed in Maine with our native (monoecious) trees who seeded themselves in. It's been that way as long as I can remember. edit: Also, I really hate how you keep showing insect pollenated flowers as if they're the problem (showy parts means not wind pollenated, as a rule).

This would've been a perfect time to play flight of the bumblebee Get it? Because bees like pollen.

11:17 girl double sneeze into napkin then proceeded to wipe eyes with SAME napkin

Thank you for sharing

I've already narrowed my seasonal allergies to grass and tree pollen. I guess I was half right.

Tom ended up getting a Master's degree because he wanted to prove his wife was lying lol

I had a extensive allergy test yrs ago. The doctor said look out the window. Every plant & tree you see, you are severly allergic to... except for tobacco plants.😕 This was in Northern California. It would get so bad I would take my dogs prescription Dexamethasone .05mg tablets when nothing else worked. I moved to Florida a few years ago. My allergies are almost gone. I take 1 Benadryl at night for sleep now. So nice.😌

Just FYI, taking "antibiotic" (at 0:14) for allergies won't help at all. You might actually instead increase the chance of developing super bugs(bacteria that is immune to most antibiotic) in your body. The doctors should have prescribe their patients antihistamines (drugs for allergy). Maybe Cheddar misread.

"We did this to ourselves" You mean other people did it and now I have to suffer the consequences? Humans are not a monolithic entity, jeez

She just coughed into the tissue and used it to wipe her eyes. She's basically coughing into her eyes.

I am so glad this is being more common information. We can fix this

This was so interesting. Never knew this!

MINDBLOWN! This video is amazing. I suffer from allergies every single year. Im so glad this was discovered.

Bringing new meaning to the phrase "this is a man's world"

I live in the NG Mountains. All the hardwoods were cut down in the '40s and '50s for timber and what was planted by the forestry service was long needle pines male pines. The pollen release in the spring is huge. Everything is covered in a thick layer of Pine pollen, even the interior of the open porches. My allergies go crazy. When it rains it all clumps together and forms a huge wafer of hard crusty pollen. It is a mess.

4 decades of debilitating seasonal allergies and this is the first I've ever heard of this!

Your grandpa: your generation is just weak.. when I was young we'd...(shhhhhhh) You: watch this video pops

This is one of the most informational videos I’ve watched in quite a while

I was expecting a story about how allergies came around. Not how one or two nations screwed up to make it worse.

Thank you for this

480p is killing me man

Wow, just this entire world of plant dynamics I didn’t know about but affects me absolutely every day (I have really bad allergies). Thank you for this info 🙏

South Korea had some insane pollen as well when I lived there. Probably not everywhere, but in some places it blanketed absolutely everything. I'm glad I'm not allergic to anything, including pollen.

I agree in Cary NC when I was living there in 2006 , allergy was so bad me and my daughters had to go to the doctor to get medications, same situation in Houston Tx as well. But WA and MI are not that bad as far as allergies seasons are concerned.

When you mentioned the Netherlands, I was like... ofcoarse my country did this.. We try to change nature in every way possible.

It sounds like she's gossiping about trees

Learn something new everyday today I learned something kinda huge here!

I'm from the UK. We don't have the same city-planning history and infrastructure as the U.S. I thought this was going to be an explanation about the overzealous immune system response, and the environmental factors humans created to sanitise our environments that have excacerbated allergies. This video explains how American cities caused giant pollen blooms that caused serious allergies.

In the end. Nature will always win.

G E K O L O N I S E E R D

I suffered for like 40 years from allergies living in NC and Texas. Once I moved west, they just disappeared. Now I really know why.

4:41 Those are some nice little trees you got right there. lol

My allergies are clearly OUTDOOR allergies as they go away entirely whenever I’m inside, but I suffer from them ALL YEAR LONG! And I live in a temperate climate... like it drops into the 30s most days of winter, so why aren’t they truly “seasonal”??? Mine NEVER STOP!

so my grandfather was released from the military due to allergies and asthma. he was offered a contract job in az cause it was figured the dry desert wouldnt affect his breathing. he chose not to take it however. this was in the early 50s. so it was a thing as far back then.

I also see you reduplicated the ending of the Scherzo- I actually kind of agree with this idea, as that ending is far too badass to only be played once after 10 minutes of various other repetitions!

I always have awful allergies at home, but never did on my campus. School had ginkgo for landscaping and pine in he forest. At home we have a big giant male polleny oak. Thanks for making it make sense