Health Articles

The asthma and smoking debate… have you been thinking of quitting smoking? Now you have asthma that choice has been made for you. There is no longer any room for debate. Read this article for some eye-opening facts.

Believe it or not, at one time doctors used to recommend that people should smoke for their health! Soldiers coming home from war were given cartons of cigarettes. Film makers glamorized smoking to the masses and they were gullible enough to take it on board.

The Real Damage Caused By Smoking

In this generation we can see past these beliefs. It is clearly evident that smoking does an awful lot of damage to people’s health and wallets. Discover your real relationship with cigarettes; cancer of the lungs, cancer of the esophagus, cancer of the mouth, chronic bronchitis, complications of viral infections. If this reality is not attractive to you then quit.

Cigarette smoke is largely composed of pollutants and nasty chemicals. These minute substances can cause the lining of the throat to inflame. When inflamed, the throat lining swells up (a symptom of asthma), making breathing extremely difficult.

Avoid Passive Smoke

If you developed a peanut allergy, you would never again eat a peanut or anything contaminated by peanuts. If you have asthma, chuck the cigarettes in the garbage bin immediately and avoid even passive smoke like the plague.

The non-smoking asthma patient is wise to avoid passive smoking, as it can be just as harmful. International law forbids smoking in planes and most countries now have adopted the policy of banning smoking in all public transport. If you live in a country which still allows people to smoke wherever the mood takes them, lobby against it for the sake of your health. People who subject others to foul, chemical laden air, are surely ignorant or selfish beyond measure. Smoking at home cannot be stopped, but a considerate person does not do this. In certain countries, a house which contains traces of cigarette smoke will not be accessed by tradesmen or municipal workers.

Get Help to Stop Smoking

Staying with that decision to quit smoking is not an easy one for the nicotine addict. Get help or you will probably relapse. There are many avenues of assistance. See your doctor for advice. There are talking therapies, group therapies, courses, patches, chewing gum, sprays, etc. There is a method to suit everyone and you may even choose to use more than one. Millions of people have now succeeded in freeing themselves of nicotine enslavement. You will too!

Keep your home smoke free. Remove all ashtrays and should a guest ask for one, explain that it is necessary to keep your home unpolluted, and suggest they smoke outside. Offer them a nicotine patch if they do not want to go out. It is important to have fresh air circulating throughout your home but beware of room fresheners as they also can be triggers. Open a window back and front of your home for a little while twice a day. Children are much more sensitive to cigarette pollution than adults. Seek out practical information on how to protect them against asthma using new and innovative methods. Look up a website with an alternative solution about how to cure asthma the natural way.

Asthma is a chronic disease, just like diabetes and high blood pressure. It cannot be cured, so even when it is not showing any symptoms and you feel just fine but it is still there and can react at any point. It is not something that will go away, once you develop asthma you are likely to have it all your life.

Here are some facts about asthma:

- 3 million people suffer from asthma all over the world.

- African Americans and Latinos are more prone to developing asthma.

- Around 5000 people die of asthma in the USA every year.

Asthma is one of the primary chronic childhood diseases and a major cause in childhood disability limiting the capacity to learn, play or sleep.

Asthma requires daily attention like monitoring your breathing and taking medicine even when you do not have symptoms. It becomes a routine part of you life.

You can keep your asthma under control by taking your medicines as prescribed, avoiding asthma triggers and monitoring.

Without treatment, asthma attack become more frequent and severe sometimes leading to death.

You can help prevent asthma attacks by identifying and avoiding your triggers.

Cigarette smoking increases your chances of developing asthma as an adult and second-hand smoking can cause childhood asthma.

Asthma is the third cause for hospitalization among children below the age of 15.

People who suffer from asthma are more likely to have attacks when the ozone levels are high, increasing their sensitivity to pet dander, dust mites, pollen and mold.

Recent studies have shown that the inflammation in the airways persists even among people with asthma who are free of symptoms and have normal lung function measurements.

Usually, people who are having an asthma attack look like their gasping for air, but in fact it is easier to breathe in than to breathe out. Air gets trapped in the lungs making them overinflated. Asthmatics try to push the increasing amount of air out of their long and through the irritated airways.

With proper treatment and monitoring asthma symptoms can be held under control and people who suffer from this disease can live perfectly normal lives.

Asthma is a common respiratory disease marked by a chronic inflammation of the airways resulting in recurring cough and breathlessness.
Traditionally, asthma is often classified into two types – intrinsic asthma and extrinsic asthma. However, as per the modern medical world, there can be so many different types of asthma, such as steroid-resistant asthma, steroid-resistant asthma, nocturnal asthma, exercise-induced asthma, intrinsic asthma, and allergic asthma. Besides that, doctors now use four basic classifications to determine the severity of asthma, including severe persistent, moderate persistent, mild persistent, and mild intermittent.

Allergic Asthma
More than 90% of the patients suffer from allergic asthma. This is the most common type, which can be diagnosed when asthma attacks are triggered by specific allergies. The good thing here is that such allergies are easily avoidable and identifiable if you get the treatment at the right time. So, make sure you contact your doctor immediately once you experience any such thing.

Intrinsic Asthma
This is one of the most common types of asthma that usually affect people aged 40 years and up. It does not normally occur in children. The cases where children have been affected by intrinsic asthma are rare. It is mainly caused by regular inhalation of irritating chemicals, such as cleaning products, smoke, and perfumes. It is not an easy condition to treat. Therefore, it is very important for you to be very alert and talk to your doctor about every symptom that you are experiencing and that might indicate to such problems. The basic idea is to prevent the condition from worsening.

Exercise-Induced Asthma
This is also one of the common types of asthma and it occurs usually in people who practice heavy exercises regularly. One of the important signs of this condition includes coughing fits caused by exercising heavily. So, you must monitor your coughs while you exercise. When you work out heavily, your lungs lose the necessary moisture and heat, which eventually results in asthmatic attacks and breathing difficulties.

Nocturnal Or Sleep-Related Asthma
In these types of asthma, the asthma symptoms occur in the patient during the night hours. This can be a very situation especially of children are experiencing this. You must consult your doctor immediately if you notice any such thing. Some common possible causes for nocturnal or sleep-related asthma include gastroesophageal reflux disorder, Allergens in the lowered room temperature, and Allergens in the bedroom.

Occupational Asthma
Occupational asthma has also become increasingly very common these days – probably because of the increased level of pollution in the air. These types of asthma occur by prolonged exposure to allergens or industrial chemicals. Inhalation of chemical fumes and dust is the major reason for these types of asthmatic attacks.

Steroid-Resistant Asthma
You are strongly recommended to take your medications as directed by the doctor. If you don’t take medications in time or take overdose of medications, you are always at the risk of developing a more serious condition, which is known as steroid-resistant asthma. In this case, the patient stops responding to the medications.

All these types of asthma need urgent medical assistance regardless of their severity level.

Asthma is among the top ten most common lung related diseases according to world health organization. Studies show that there are many causes for asthma. They can be hereditary, environmental or even lifestyle causes. Although it is a symptom, asthma is only one of the diseases that may lead to an abnormal activity of the body called wheezing.
Wheezing Is Common Asthma Symptom for Adults
Wheezing, according to medical dictionaries is the whistling noise in the chest during breathing when the airways are narrowed or compressed. Wheezing, according to health experts is caused by nearly 586 diseases, but asthma and chronic heart diseases are the most common.

Wheezing is accompanied by shortness of breath, fast breathing or coughing up phlegm. It is common for heart disease patients as well. Heart failure is a condition in which the heart pumps inadequately because of complications such as prolonged hypertension or heart valve disease. As a result, blood backs up in the venous system.

In some cases, such a backup causes the lungs to become swollen and congested and leads to wheezing. This condition, called pulmonary edema, is an acute and potentially life-threatening symptom of congestive heart failure.

For asthma-caused wheezing, it is triggered by something that reached the sensitivity of the passage or air ways such as fumes, cigarette smoke, perfume, or even those little potpourris. The trigger may dry the bronchial tissue and constricts the smooth muscles in the lungs. Wheezing may also be caused by the inhalation of a foreign object, which blocks the larynx or bronchial tubes.

Mild wheezing may also accompany respiratory infections such as acute bronchitis and may be experienced by patients in heart failure and by some with emphysema or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD. But the characteristic whistling sound of wheezing is a primary symptom of the chronic respiratory disease asthma.
Asthma wheezing treatment
However, wheezing that develops suddenly and is accompanied by other symptoms, as well as chronic wheezing that worsens suddenly, may signal a life-threatening emergency.
Johnson Star

A fish out of water. This how many people who suffer from asthma describe their illness and it is quite an accurate description actually because even though those who suffer from this disease are breathing they feel they cannot satisfy their lung capacity and so they grasp for more air in a desperate struggle to make this horrible sensation go away.

If you have suffer from asthma or you know a loved one who is going through this difficult phase you know that this can be something rather difficult to get through for the entire family not to even mention the person who has the illness but it doesn’t have to be that way.

In some cases those who suffer from chronic asthma are not able to get fast relief because of the fact that they do not know what is causing the illness what is making it even more acute and how they can get rid of the factors that make this respiratory problem go wild.

Those who suffer from summer allergies may be surprised that the very same allergen that triggers their allergies is also involved in several cases where people not only suffer from common allergies but from asthma as well, we are talking about CRC also referred to as Candida overgrowth. Candida is a fungus that can weaken your immune system and can trigger several respiratory allergies including asthma.
Natural Asthma Remedies
The first step in order to treat asthma is to take an electro dermal screening test that will help you determine all the things that you are allergic to. In order to reduce and control asthma attacks it is also recommended to cut out all the dairy products that you may be used to consuming, you will also have to stop eating certain grains such as rice, you will have to stop eating wheat as well as the yeast and any other product that may contain this in gradients because they are known to trigger respiratory allergies in people who suffer from asthma.
Causes and symptoms of alleriges
Once you have taken care of the foods that can worsen your condition it is time to address your environment, if you or someone you know suffers from asthma you will want to keep your house as clean as possible, I’m talking about dust because it is known to trigger respiratory allergies and when it comes to asthma it just makes things worse, the same can be said about polyester and certain fabrics that are usually found in children’s toys, plushes, etc. you might also want to get an air purifier but don’t think that such device can do the job all by itself because even the most expensive air purifier will not 100% protect you from allergens.

Asthma is common, so common that there’s possibly somebody that you know that suffers from it if you do not suffer from it yourself. Even if you don’t have a full understanding of what asthma is you do however know what the symptoms are.

Asthma is a respiratory condition where the small airways in the lungs tighten up, and it causes a person having an attack having a very tough time to breathe. The length of the attack usually depends on how serious the condition is and how tight the airways are. The appearance of asthma does not follow awfully predictable patterns. Folk of any age and sex can have asthma but it is not atypical to first appear during infancy. Some folks are lucky and outgrow asthma. There are the unfortunate people that may live with asthma for the rest of their lives. There are many people who suffer with asthma that have no other relations in their families who have it.

Normal signs and symptoms of asthma often are cough, wheezing, tightness in the chest, breath shortness, and problems breathing. These are symptoms that can change from individual to person.
Asthma attacks can be mild, moderate, or severe.
-A mild asthma suffer sometimes has an attack when they have an higher respiration infection. Most other times they’re completely fine and have no asthma symptoms at all.
Significant asthma control
-Moderate asthma sufferers can have some symptoms from time to time. It could be worse in the early morning or late in the night, when they have got a cold, or have a big quantity of stress in their lives.

-Severe asthma suffers traditionally have asthma symptoms each single day. Sometimes they could find it hard to even talk or to be able to do any exercises.

Because a significant asthma attack can make it troublesome for an individual to breathe it is critical to understand the signs and symptoms of asthma. Treating it quickly can keep it from worsening.
Therefore if you have asthma or are looking after somebody suffering from it, it is necessary to recognize the numerous signs and symptoms of asthma so that you know when you must use asthma medicine to treat the issues.

Asthma information

Asthma is a chronic disease in the airways that can make breathing very difficult. When a person has asthma, there is an inflammation in the air passages that can result in a temporary narrowing in the airways that carry the oxygen to the lungs. When this occurs, asthma symptoms begin to appear. Some of the first signs of asthma include coughing, wheezing, chest tightness and shortness of breath.

Although there are a lot of treatments for asthma symptoms, it is still a potentially dangerous disease that affects more then 22 million people. Most people who have some kind of treatment are able to live well with asthma, but those who don’t receive treatment can find it difficult to be active and perform exercises.
Unusual asthma symptoms
Those who suffer from asthma experience airway obstruction. When normal breathing occurs, the bands of muscles that surround the airways are able to relax and allow the air to move freely. When people have asthma, the allergy triggers make the bands of muscles that surround the airways tighten up and the air is not able to move freely. Cialis professional. When there is less air, this causes the person to feel short of breath. People who suffer from asthma also experience inflammation in the bronchial tubes, which causes them to be red and swollen. The inflammation that occurs in the bronchial tubes is thought to contribute to long term damage in the lungs.

People with asthma have airways that are very sensitive and the airways can overreact and become narrow from small triggers like animal dander, dust, fumes or pollen. Some of the causes and triggers for asthma include certain infections like sinusitis, flu and colds. Allergens are also a big trigger and can be from pollens, pet dander, dust mites and mold spore. Even irritants from strong smelling aromas like perfume or cleaning solutions can trigger asthma. Sometimes, other external causes can be exercise, changes in the weather, having strong emotions, medications and other allergens.

People who have asthma attacks generally have similar symptoms that they can recognize. When an asthma attack is occurring, the airways tighten up, swell or even fill up with mucus. Coughing is a common symptom, along with wheezing, shortness of breath and tightening of the chest, pain of the chest or pressure. People who are treated for asthma can learn to manage the disease, but those who are not can be causing damage to their airways and body by not taking care of the disease. Asthma can be diagnosed by a doctor, so if you feel like you may have asthma, you should consider being evaluated for it and follow the proper treatments that are given.
James Conrad

Allergic illnesses have a significant impact that allergic diseases have on children’s health and quality of life. Allergic diseases, including asthma, are among the major causes of chronic illnesses in the United States, affecting approximately 50 million patients or as many as one in five children. The economic impact is enormous; asthma alone is estimated to cost more than 6.2 billion dollars of health care expenditures annually. Of all the chronic illnesses, allergic respiratory problems, including allergic asthma, is the most common cause of school absenteeism. Even though allergic disease usually is not fatal, death can result as a consequence of allergic anaphylaxis related to medication, food, or insect venom allergy or from a complication of asthma. Therefore, the pediatrician must be capable of diagnosing allergic disease so as to institute appropriate management. This review will emphasize those clinical diagnostic features ascertained by history and physical examination as well as the appropriate laboratory studies useful in the diagnosis of respiratory (inhalant) and gastrointestinal (food) allergy.
General Features of Allergic Diseases
Allergic diseases are immunoglobulin E (IgE)-mediated immunologic illnesses that can affect any of the body’s major organ systems either individually or collectively. Typically, children are not born having allergies because maternal IgE normally does not cross the placenta.
In rare instances, neonates and young infants who apparently were sensitized in utero have been born with specific IgE to foods and had allergic reactions to those foods. Development of an allergy requires a familial predisposition and repeat exposure to an allergen (antigen) that provokes specific IgE antibody.
Epidemiologic surveys indicate that the familial trait for allergy is inherited as autosomal recessive. Whereas the frequency of positive allergy skin tests is similar in boys and girls, asthma is twice as common in males as in females prior to adolescence, but it appears equal in prevalence thereafter. A specific immune response gene has been identified for IgE antibody synthesis in rodents, but it has not yet been demonstrated conclusively in humans. With the recent advances in molecular genetics, it is anticipated that the genetic basis of allergy will be understood better in the near future.
Allergens sensitize by several potential routes and are categorized as inhalants, ingestants, injectants, and contactants (Table 1).
It is important for the physician to define the route by which any specific allergen provokes clinical allergy in individual patients. Of the inhalant IgE-mediated allergies, allergic rhinitis is by far the most common, affecting approximately 15% of all children.
Asthma, of which 80% has an allergic inhalant basis, occurs in more than 5% of children. Gastrointestinal (ingestant) allergy typically is associated with food allergy; however, ingestants also may provoke urticaria and atopic dermatitis and less often may trigger respiratory symptoms. Anaphylaxis is a systemic generalized allergic response consisting of hypotension, urticaria, and angioedema as well as upper and lower airway obstruction; it can be caused by severe allergic reactions to foods (ingestant), insect venom stings (injectant), or medications (ingestant, injectant, or contactant).
Although incriminated anecdotally as the cause for hyperactivity, poor school performance, learning disabilities, or abnormal child behavior, there are no definitive, appropriately controlled studies that document an IgE allergic etiology for these predominantly psychosocial or educational problems. The possibility that overgrowth of a yeast such as Candida is important in the pathogenesis of allergy never has been substantiated. The concept of such a candidal syndrome in the context of abnormal child behavior has no validity, and antifungal therapy in the absence of overt clinical candidal infection should be discouraged.

When you breathe, the air reaches the inner part of lungs through small wind pipes called bronchi. Asthma is a condition that involves reversible spasm of these wind pipes. Inflammation is one of your body’s responses to fight any injury or infection. If any part of your body is infected by bugs, the white blood cells in your blood will accumulate in that area and fight with the bugs. In case of injury, inflammation helps in rapid healing of that injured part. But during the process of inflammation, some chemicals will be released which cause leakage of fluid from blood vessels leading to swelling of that area. Even though this inflammatory process is good for your body’s defense, sometimes this process could be triggered unnecessarily causing some unwanted problems.
News results for asthma by google.com:
30 million Indians suffer from asthma
Asthma control project launched
The programme was launched at a ceremony held here Tuesday on the occasion of the World Asthma Day organised by the ministries and the Allergy and Asthma Institute, Pakistan

Asthma is such a type of problem where the inflammation specifically affects the wind pipes. In fact asthma patients are over sensitive to the effects of this inflammatory process. In response to some triggering factors, the muscles in the wind pipe goes into spasm and the airway swells (more than normally they should). In addition the small glands in the wind pipes secrete too much of mucus. This combination effectively causes narrowing of wind pipe, in worst cases they could cause complete blockage.

Incidence:

Asthma is very common in developed countries. It has been estimated at least 1 in 10 children living in industrialized countries suffer from asthma. Roughly 5% of population is affected at one stage of their life by asthma. It has been estimated around 17 million Americans (6.4% of the population) including 5 million children suffer from Asthma. In United Kingdom over 5 million (including 1.4 million of children) have asthma. Teenagers are found to be more commonly affected (around 15-20%). But strangely incidence of asthma is low in far eastern countries like Singapore and Malaysia.

Types of asthma

Extrinsic asthma;
People who suffer from any form allergy are prone to get this type of asthma. Often other family members also suffer from some form allergies. People in this group often suffer from other related allergic conditions (atopy) such eczema and hay fever. This type of asthma often develops in childhood and usually cause problem mainly in certain seasons of the year.

Intrinsic asthma:
In this type there is no history of allergy and symptoms can get worse irrespective of the seasons of the year. Strangely aspirin may cause this type in some patients.

Work aggravated asthma:
Asthma symptoms made worse by work place dust and fumes. People coming under the category normally have pre-existing asthma.

Occupational Asthma:
This is slightly different from work-related asthma. Here the symptoms are due to prolonged exposure to substances specific to certain occupations (e.g.) exposure to latex in health care workers, flour industry.

Exercise-induced Asthma:
Here the symptoms are aggravated by exercise. This often considered as a poor symptom control in patients who already suffer from asthma.

Vitamin Supplements

While home remedies seem to be “hit and miss” and vary from one person to another, Vitamin supplements seem to work consistently.

• Vitamin C is high in antioxidants. The average recommended dose is 98mg. To get the benefits of vitamin C, try taking a higher than average dosage of Vitamin C – 200 mg. Studies show that this lowers asthma attacks by 30%. Vitamin C seems particularly effective for exercise-induced asthma.

• B6 has also shown dramatic decrease in the frequency and severity of wheezing attacks.

• Magnesium, has a bronchodilating effect and helps relieve asthma symptoms. It has been shown that asthma sufferers have low Magnesium stores.

Herbal Supplements

Herbal remedies have been used for thousands of years. Pick up some of these at your local health food store and try them. Be careful to only try one new herb at a time and start with low doses. The amount needed of a particular herb varies from one person to the next.
Comfrey – Decreases swelling and repairs tissue
Jimson – Relieves spasms of the bronchi
Mullein, Garlic and peppermint all work as an expectorant

Look through these suggestions and try the ones that look appealing to you. Hopefully, by trying some of these remedies, you will find relief from your asthma symptoms.
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