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Original poster

fields of rapeseed - effect on health

26 replies

hazeyjane · 17/04/2017 18:39

does anyone know if hay fever caused by rapeseed is very specific in severity, or whether there are any adverse reactions to health caused by rapeseed that aren't hay fever??

OP posts:
HeyMacWey · 17/04/2017 20:05

My hayfever is shocking when the rapeseed is in full flower.

Not sure if that's helpful :o

midsomermurderess · 17/04/2017 20:57

All I can say is it smells of piss.

MarklahMarklah · 17/04/2017 21:03

It really aggravates my hayfever. And yes, midsomer, it stinks!

skinnyamericano · 17/04/2017 21:09

I get hay fever from all sorts of pollen, but rapeseed seems to particularly affect my breathing - I get very wheezy with it. Bloody hate the stuff!

TheFairyCaravan · 17/04/2017 21:18

We live in a rural area and my house is a large garden's width from a field. Every other year the field is planted with rapeseed, it's planted with it this year, and it gives me migraines and DH gets hay fever when he never does normally.

Both our kids suffer with hay fever, anyhow, and the rapeseed makes it worse, if we're in the car they start sneezing before we've even got the rapeseed in sight. DS2 is asthmatic and it exacerbates it.

They've both moved out for the majority of the time now. DS2 lives on the outskirts of a city at uni, he's not really suffered with hay fever however he was home last weekend and within a few hours his nose was running, he was sneezing and his eyes were running.

I bloody hate rapeseed, there seems to loads this year and it's flowering early.

vitaminC · 17/04/2017 21:20

I grew up in a village surrounded by fields of oilseed rape and had terrible hay fever every year until I left home!

I still get the odd day of itchy eyes and sneezing, but nothing anywhere close to what it was like living there! Horrible stuff!

FoxesSitOnBoxes · 17/04/2017 21:22

It gives me a thumping headache and I don't really get hay fever. I hate it!

StillMedusa · 17/04/2017 22:26

I love it (just as well as I live rurally and am surrounded) but my adult DS1 hasn't been able to breathe for the last month without spluttering and his eyes look like puff balls, and nothing really helps.
Seems earlier than usual too!

Original poster
hazeyjane · 17/04/2017 22:46

Just wondering, as ds has been so wheezy, then FB timehop showed me he was the same the last few years. Someone said to me that it is probably the massive rape fields around us, and that growing rape produces a chemical that can aggravate respiratory symptoms.

This year it is even worse for him, up for the last few nights giving his inhaler throughout the night, antihistamines making no difference. It's bloody horrible, and I am crossing everything that he doesn't end up in hospital with his asthma.

I just wanted to see if this might be a thing, or if it is just noticing the fields more because the flowers ate so bloody bright! I must admit the smell of rape makes me feel headache and nauseous, so I may be biased.

OP posts:
Oneiroi · 18/04/2017 21:02

It is disgusting stuff. I think there were some studies a few years ago showing the negative effects on health? I will never buy the oil so as not to encourage production. It makes me really ill going anywhere near a field of it.

Original poster
hazeyjane · 18/04/2017 21:35

Well with another night of wheezing and hacking cough, and double his inhalers, I am starting to feel the same loathing (of course it's probably not rape causing it!)

OP posts:
MOIST · 18/04/2017 21:37

It's foul stuff should be bloody banned.

MOIST · 18/04/2017 21:38

I do think I'm more affected by tree pollen though. But it's the same time of year as the rape starts flowering so no idea really. But I hate the smell.

Original poster
hazeyjane · 18/04/2017 21:42

I guess there is probably even more grown this year as well due to all the 'Jamie says rapeseed is the healthiest oil' stuff. arsebuckets

OP posts:
ToffeeForEveryone · 18/04/2017 21:47

I never had hayfever until I moved to an area surrounded by rapeseed fields in my early 20s. Was horrendous when I was living there and even though I've moved away I still now get symptoms every spring / summer. I think it was all triggered by the rapeseed.

Frillyhorseyknickers · 18/04/2017 21:52

I will never buy the oil so as not to encourage production.
it's not just sold by the twee jars in Sainsbury's is it, otherwise it wouldn't be quite so common. It's a biofuel on a global scale 🙄 🙄

We're arable farmers and plant a lot of OSR and mustard (the two look very similar) as break crops. I'm an asthma suffered and it does affect me. The new hybrid varieties seem to aggravate my asthma much less than traditional seed varieties, but do flower for longer.

The British Medical Journal has reported that there is no clear evidence that oilseed rape has adverse effects on health, it flowers at the same time as grass and flowering tree pollens and the blame is usually planted firmly at the door of OSR because it looks more offensive than your average avenue of trees...

That and the fact that as a brassica, it smells fairly rotten once it has finished flowering.

RB68 · 18/04/2017 22:07

I get severe sight altering migraines from it if exposed for more than a few minutes - even then I can feel the headache building. I never had any sort of hayfever until exposed in a prolonged way to OSR in the East Midlands when i lived over there. I previously lived elsewhere where it generally wasn't grown (We are talking 20 yrs ago) and never had any hayfever at all and we lived in the country. So sorry mine is v definitely OSR but generally only when in the vicinity of it. Loratadine deals with it so for the time it in flower I just take one a day (around 6 weeks) and make sure air filter on in car and cover my mouth and nose when I can see it. I think also different varieties have an effect some years I haven't been bothered but more recently its all the time

Bardolino · 18/04/2017 22:07

Hmm. My sister loves oil seed rape as it doesn't set off her hay fever. She was plagued with it growing up, suffered terribly. Moved to the country-side, house surrounded by farmland, fields of oil seed rape: no hay fever. Visits our parents, large, grassy garden: eyes start streaming.

Anecdote yes, but as Frilly says, there's no strong evidence that OSR is the culprit.

wonkylegs · 18/04/2017 22:11

Some people are more sensitive to it than others - my mum used to get terrible hayfever from it and very few other things but she seems to have grown out of it.
I get similar aggressive hayfever symptoms from certain tree pollens.

wonkylegs · 18/04/2017 22:12

Meant to say it doesn't affect me at all thankfully as the fields at the back & front of my house have it this year

Oneiroi · 18/04/2017 22:55

it's not just sold by the twee jars in Sainsbury's is it, otherwise it wouldn't be quite so common. It's a biofuel on a global scale 🙄** 🙄

No, it isn't. But it is a health hazard so I will not do anything to encourage it being grown.

The British Medical Journal has reported that there is no clear evidence that oilseed rape has adverse effects on health, it flowers at the same time as grass and flowering tree pollens and the blame is usually planted firmly at the door of OSR because it looks more offensive than your average avenue of trees...

Yet other research has different findings. Like other posters I first developed hay fever because of this plant. Extremely serious hay fever than made me feel like I had flu for months and made my throat constrict so that I struggled to breathe. I once walked right next to a field of it as a child before I realised how toxic it was and almost collapsed because it constricted my airways so much. Tree pollen on the other hand makes me sneeze at the most. And I had no reaction to tree pollen at all before I lived near fields this toxic plant that triggered my allergies.

Frillyhorseyknickers · 19/04/2017 07:30

No, it isn't. But it is a health hazard so I will not do anything to encourage it being grown.

In your opinion, but as you've provided no examples of research to accompany your claim, I'll have to assume you're another townie with no idea what you're on about.

The research into OSR on health is extensive and the results have not shown anything of risk. People have different allergies to different pollen - should we ban tree pollen because that cripples my allergies.

TheBadgersMadeMeDoIt · 19/04/2017 13:03

This reminds me of the time my MIL walked town over, visiting all the supermarkets, independent grocers and farm shops because she had a recipe that required rapeseed oil, but couldn't find it.

She didn't know that most supermarket bog-standard "vegetable oil" is actually 100% rapeseed oil. It's really quite hard to avoid.

Lushmetender · 20/04/2017 20:07

The only time I get hay fever is when rape sees is flowering,

IrishElla · 21/04/2017 00:15

We moved to an area with rapeseed and my husband was so wheezy and struggling to breathe that he was diagnosed with asthma (at 35). He's never had any symptoms before this.