Do you also sneeze when you face the sun? Well, the diagnosis is simple, you are affected, like one in four people, by the photostutatorial reflex.
Syndrome Achoo
For its 75th episode, Sixth Science, The science podcasts Sciences et Avenir and 20 Minutes tell you all about these sneezes that activate only when exposed to light — also called heliotropic — and not due to, for example, allergies or airborne irritants. On the microphone, Sylvie Riou Milliot, head of the health department, answered Romain Gouloum’s question from 20 minutes
So it always starts with sunlight (or artificial light), which serves as a sneeze-triggering signal in an often out-of-control explosion. Anglo-Saxons even call this syndrome amusing with the onomatopoeia, Achoo, for the autosomal dominant helio-ophthalmic eruption. But if the first observations actually took place in the 1950s – a French ophthalmologist who noticed that the light from his device caused his patients to sneeze – only recently, last fall, a German scientist himself at Oxford posted what should be the type of sneeze. this, Manuel Spischan, decided to find out more.
He launched a survey to form the sneeze group known as the Oxford Photic Sneeze Survey. Within months, nearly 300 volunteers contacted him, all of whom responded via announcements made on the media and social networks. Now it remains for the scientist to continue his work, perhaps to test the effects of different light waves and in any case to understand the subtle physiological mechanisms underlying this reflex.
Sneeze not to be remembered
We already know that sneezing serves to protect us from external aggressors like dust, pollen and that we shouldn’t hold back. Indeed, a clinical case reported in 2018 by a scientific journal on a 34-year-old British man showed that he spontaneously perforated his throat by trying to hold back his sneeze! So treat yourself to a sneeze and find the full article in the March issue of Sciences et Avenir – La Recherche on kiosks since late February or on the Sciences et Avenir website. Without forgetting to put yourself between two salvos in The Sixth Science Archives are all available or register for free here.
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