Pollen grains are wrapped in the solid shell, which protects the nutrients and hereditary substance in it as an "armor". The pollen wall has a great capacity of not only withstanding being soaked in caustic soda and boiled in water but also resisting radioactivity. Experiments made by Japanese scholars by increasing the radioactive dose shows that the lethal dose of radiation on human beings is 0.15 coulomb/kilogram whereas a dose of 77.4-129 coulomb/kilogram on pollen cells demonstrates the marvelous solidity and anti-radioactivity properties of the pollen shell. It is originated in Japan that the digestive juice of human beings and monogastric animal can not break down the sporoderm of the pollen, thus the sporodem has to be removed before all the nutrients in pollen can be absrobed. However, European and American countries that have popularized pollen products hold that the pollen with a sporoderm or without a sporoderm can both be absorbed by the body. For many years, no agreement has been reached on this issue whether it is necessary or not to break the pollen sporoderm. This argument has captured the great attention of nutritionists. Many studies have been carried out on the sporoderm-breaking of pollen by experts at home and abroad as a scientific research subject.

The study on the microforms and nutrients has been made by the Trace Element Research Laboratory of the General Hospital of the PLA with an analytic comparison on the nutrients of natural pollen and sporoderm-broken pollen and a discussion has been provided on the effect of the sporoderm breaking on the pollen structure and nutrients after an observation on the changes of the microforms before and after the sporoderm is broken with the scanning electron microscope.

Pine pollen is a kind of faint yellow powder with a light texture easy to flow and a soft feel of lubricity. The fluid property of pine pollen can be perceived when a bottle with it is being shaken but the fluid properties are lost when its sporoderm is broken with the high speed airflow pulverization method causing the change on its physical properties, unable to flow due to the tremendous adhesiveness of the sporoderm-broken pine pollen.

The vesicae shed and separate themselves from the pollen grains under the mechanical force while they are crashing with one another under the force of the high speed airflow during the sporoderm-breaking process. The main bodies of the sporoderm-broken pollen grains are relatively enriched due to the fact that the vesicae are easy to be carried by the high speed airflow for its special physical structure and get lost with the force of the airflow. The analysis on the related components of natural and sporoderm-broken pine pollen reveals a dramatic decrease in the content of hemicellulose from 12.8％ to 1.5％ with a loss of 88％, and certain decrease of cellulose from 14.4％ to 9.9％ with a loss of over 30%, lignin from 29.6％ to 25.9％with a loss of 12.5％, coarse fiber with a loss about 23％(from 35.6％ to 27.3％) and sugar from 12.3％ to 10％ with a loss of 18.7％. It is easy to speculate that different kinds of celluloses and sugar are the main components of the vesicae of the pine pollen grains from the decrease in the contents of coarse cellulose, hemicellulose, cellulose, lignin and sugar. This accounts for the fact that the vesicae of the pollen grains are composed of cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin and other components. Natural pollen, with tiny grains, contains plenty of pollen cells. The loss of lignin, the main component of the cell wall, after the pine pollen sporoderm is broken is just 12.5％, which shows that it mainly exists in the main bodies of the pine pollen grains.

The question why the total energy, total lipid and amylum in pine pollen can increase has been answered by the comparison of microforms and nutritional components between pine pollen before and after the sporoderm-breaking process. The analytic result shows: the content of crude protein in sporoderm-broken pine pollen increases from 12.7％ to 13.1％, amylum from 5.4％ to 7％, total lipid from 7.3％ to 10％ and the total energy in pine pollen increases by 5%. The content of natural crude ash is 3.1％ while that in wall-broken pine pollen increases to 3.5％ (according to the regulations of Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China, 2000 version, the content of crude ash in pine pollen should not exceed 8％). This is undoubtedly due to the enrichment of pollen grains' main bodies after pine pollen's wall-breaking process (See Figure 4-1).

Figure 4-1 Comparison of components between natural pine pollen and sporoderm-broken pine pollen:

The extractable components of pine pollen increase obviously after the sporoderm-broking process. According to the examination, the total content of water soluble carbohydrate doubles after the sporoderm-breaking process, from 14.8％ to 30.2％, which indicates that the solubility of soluble carbohydrate in pine pollen increases greatly after the vesica is removed. Meanwhile, the content of aether-extracting lipid increases dramatically from 1.5％ to 10.5％, seven times more than the original content, which also indicates that the solubility of lipid soluble components in the main bodies of pine pollen grains also increases dramatically. The content of soluble trace element zinc also shows a remarkable increase after the sporoderm-breaking process, from 0.16 mg/g to 0.26mg/g. The total content of amino acid in sporoderm-broken pine pollen is nearly the same as that in natural pine pollen, but still a little higher. The content of free amino acid in sporoderm-broken pine pollen is higher than that in natural pine pollen (See Figure 4-2). All the above indexes reflect the effect of the sporoderm-breaking process.

Figure 4-2 Comparison of components of amino acids before and after sporoderm-breaking disposal:

It is encouraging to see that some of pine pollen's nutritional components are still able to be released after the sporoderm-breaking process of natural pine pollen. It has been proved that pollen's nutritional components exist on the pollen sporoderm as well as inside the pollen grain. The nutrition of pollen remains intact after the sporoderm-breaking process. The research has confirmed some related experts' perspective that without sporoderm-breaking process the effective nutritional components of natural pine pollen can not be fully released.

The record of pine pollen's innocuity in Compendium of Materia Medica through ages is the fruit of Chinese people's practices for thousands of years. In modern times, the pilot study has been carried out on the pine pollen's effect on the growing rats' zinic metabolism and lipid metabolism by the nutrition experts in the Nutritional Physiological Institute of Munich Technology University, Germany with an attempt to make assessments of the physiological effects of pine pollen's nutrition. The result shows pine pollen's great safety that all physiological indexes of the first-weaned rats remain unchanged after they take 5﹪of pine pollen feed with a balance between the contents of feed, zinic, protein and other nutrients. The record of pine pollen's innocuity in Compendium of Materia Medica through ages has been confirmed by the experiments of pine pollen's acute toxicity, inductive mutation and sub-acute toxicity from modern medical perspective.

 Ⅲ. Pine pollen's allergic reaction

The key of pollen's allergic effect lies in itself, that is to say, there must be certain allergen in the pollen when allergy occurs; otherwise, no allergic reaction would occur to pollen. The pine pollen experts in Geologic Department of Beijing University have confirmed that there is no allergen in pine pollen and no allergic reaction will be caused as well despite the fact that pine pollen belongs to the anemophilous family, which is characterized of its great production and far spread. The Japanese pollen expert Kozikejicelo also confirmed such a fact: "Pollen doesn't seem to be an immediate cause of pollenosis as far as I am concerned, although I have been involved with it during the past 40 years when I breathed a great deal of pollen, especially pine pollen, fir pollen and cypress pollen, etc."