A personal discovery
“I used to have respiratory allergies back home, but since I moved to Málaga, they didn’t bother me anymore,” a patient answered to the usual question, “Do you have any allergies?” during a checkup in my occupational medicine practice. He was from India, and he had moved to Málaga two years before our talk. He was the fourth patient within a month telling me the same story (before him, patients from Cuba, Venezuela, and Poland reported the same). But there was a fifth patient living the same “miraculous healing”: myself.
I had allergies as long as I can remember—food allergies and skin rashes back in childhood, troublesome asthma later on. In my last month in Romania, I wouldn’t survive a day without using the inhaler—asthma was hitting me hard. Three years in Málaga? Not even a cough!
As both an MD and an allergy patient, I couldn’t help but notice the pattern, which slowly raised the question: What is it about Málaga (or coastal living, as a matter of fact) that eases respiratory allergies? Here’s what I found.
What science says about allergies
“Allergies are our bodies’ confused rebellion—overreacting to a speck of pollen or a whiff of dust with sneezes, wheezes, or worse. They’re not static; they shift with us—across borders, climates, and centuries—reflecting a world we’ve tilted out of balance,” says Theresa McPhail, medical anthropologist and author of the bestseller Allergic: Our Irritated Bodies in a Changing World.
A 2024 meta-analysis (“The Association Between Migration and Prevalence of Allergic Diseases: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis“) links the migration phenomenon—so common in our globalized world—with significant shifts in the behavior of allergies. While moving from rural to urban areas might increase symptoms, doing it just the other way around may alleviate manifestations (same result for moving from developing to developed countries). The double-edged sword seems to be explained in the first place by the quality of air we breathe. This finding immediately made sense for me as well as for my patients—Bucharest often struggles with pollution indexes of 150, while Málaga barely reaches 50.
Moreover, coastal air has a lower allergen load compared with inland areas, which helps ease respiratory symptoms. Sea breeze not only increases levels of serotonin—improving mood in a blink of an eye—but also protects against high quantities of pollen: no more hay fever tears!
Vitamin D influences allergies—it modulates immune cells and regulates genes that protect against allergens. A 2016 study (Vitamin D and the Development of Allergic Disease: How Important Is It?) shows that appropriate levels of vitamin D could keep allergy manifestations at bay. There it was, another clue—while Bucharest’s gray skies during the cold season left me low on vitamin D, Málaga’s endless sunshine keeps my vitamin D high and my allergies low.
Highlights for health care
My personal and professional experience mirrors the significant role of environmental factors in allergy management. It’s been a reminder for me to pay due regard to patients’ life conditions and recent relocations when dealing with respiratory allergy symptoms—sometimes a change of scenery might be just the approach needed.
Georgiana Ilie is a medical geneticist.
