Come springtime, many of us will be sniffling from seasonal allergies. Scientists recently identified some potentially fundamental differences between people with runny-nose allergies and those without—and it has to do with nose fungi.

An international team of researchers say people with allergy-induced sniffles and asthma have different fungal communities in their noses than symptom-free individuals. Their findings, detailed in a December 17 study published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology, could have important applications for future allergy and asthma treatments.

“We showed that allergic rhinitis samples displayed a significantly higher fungal diversity and a different fungal community structure compared to those of healthy controls,” Luís Delgado of the University of Porto, who participated in the study, said in a Frontiers in Microbiology statement. Allergic rhinitis is the medical term for allergy symptoms such as a blocked or runny nose, sneezing, itching, and inflamed nasal membranes.

“This may suggest that allergic rhinitis increases the diversity and changes the composition of the upper airway’s microbiome,” Delgado added. Allergic rhinitis is often linked to asthma, which also involves inflammation and blocked airways. The researchers suggest that allergic rhinitis and asthma may be two aspects of the same underlying condition.

The team, including researchers from The George Washington University, took nasal swabs from 215 patients from an immunology and asthma clinic in Porto, Portugal, in addition to 125 healthy individuals. Of the patients from the clinic, 155 had both allergic rhinitis and asthma, 47 had only allergic rhinitis, and 12 had only asthma.

They then sequenced the DNA of the fungi from the nasal swabs and “detected common fungi that have been recognized in humans as allergenic or opportunistic pathogenic fungi,” said Delgado.

“This confirms at fungal level what is already known for bacteria, that the nasal cavity is a major reservoir for opportunistic pathogens that can cause allergic rhinitis and asthma,” the researchers wrote in the study. While these pathogenic fungi were discovered in all samples, Delgado and his colleagues found that clinic patients had richer and more diverse fungal communities in their noses than healthy individuals. Additionally, the team noted evidence suggesting that the fungi of patients with both respiratory diseases are impacting the nose’s immune environment.

Perhaps most importantly, however, they also found a surplus of 5-aminoimidazole ribonucleotide—a chemical compound associated with energy metabolism and DNA synthesis—in the noses of patients with both respiratory diseases. The scientists suggest that, with further research, this potential association could direct future therapeutics to target AIR to treat or diagnose sniffly allergies and asthma.

The team plans to conduct follow-up studies, giving hope to the hundreds of millions of people that tell their friends that it really is just allergies every time they reach for a tissue.