Ahh, spring in Japan! This is the magical season of cherry blossoms and haiku celebrating the happy return of nature and beauty. But, for a growing legion of Japanese, spring brings an epidemic of sneezing, runny nose, stuffiness, and itchy eyes and throat. We speak of pollinosis, also known as hay fever, an allergy to pollen that affects 16% of Japan's population—some 20 million people.
  Around 80% of sufferers are allergic to cedar pollen, which is abundant from February to April. Record summer heat in 2004 induced the cedar trees to produce 10–30 times the normal pollen level for spring 2005. This not only brought on record suffering, but also meant significant numbers of patients were affected for the first time. Just why pollinosis is such an epidemic in Japan can be traced to the 1950s, when hillsides were replanted with monoculture stands of cedar under government policy. The first major outbreaks occurred in the 1970s as the trees reached maturity and began spreading pollen.
  Effective and permanent treatment is too bothersome for most sufferers, requiring two years of periodic hospital visits. Instead, they tend to rely on medications to dry the nose and reduce sneezing, eye drops, etc. Drug stores have special shelves piled high with over-the-counter remedies, including assorted surgical masks, which serve as pollen filters, creams that can be applied inside the nose to block the pollen's effects and special glasses that fit tightly to the face to protect the eyes.
  Nutritional remedies are popular, too. The public is gobbling up supplement pills, herbal teas and foods that are said to ease symptoms, such as lactic bacteria—as found in yoghurt. This season, food and beverage companies rolled out product after product containing lactic bacteria, each claiming to help make life easier for hay fever sufferers.