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Loading ...Affecting over 300 million people worldwide, asthma is currently the most common respiratory ailment. Asthma is a chronic inflammatory condition where respiratory airways, in response to certain environmental stimuli, become constricted, inflamed, and clogged with mucus. Understandably, such symptoms greatly decrease one’s ability to breathe and therefore function.
Mild vs. Severe Asthma Symptoms
The majority of people suffering from asthma rarely experience more than mild symptoms, which include difficult and/or painful breathing, coughing brought on by irritation and mucus build-up, and wheezing (a whistling sound made while breathing due to restricted airways).
In severe and chronic cases, symptoms indicative of a more immediately life-threatening condition are present. Often, prescribed treatments no longer help, allowing inflammation and bronchoconstriction to continue for extended periods of time. When this happens, nail beds and lips can often appear a grayish-blue as blood-oxygen levels decrease.
An event called recession can occur, where the skin covering the ribs can recede so much that individual rib bones can be seen. Most people who die from asthma do so during an acute attack. However, this can be avoided by immediately seeking professional medical help.
Why Does This Happen?
Asthma is actually due to an over-reaction of the immune system, not the respiratory system. When we breathe, we inhale not only oxygen but also the many chemicals and particles present in air. Usually the immune system will ignore such things if they are present in small amounts. However, people with asthma have hyper-sensitive immune systems that perceive such environmental stimuli as a threat, causing an immune reaction in an attempt to protect the body.
Think about it: if dust was a life-threatening particle, reducing the amount that enters your airways through bronchoconstriction, increased mucus production, and inflammation could potentially protect the body from harm. So the asthmatic immune system has the right idea, but is just confused as to what is harmful.
Asthma Treatment
Because asthma is the result of an over-active immune system, controlling the activities of the immune system is one way to treat asthma - or at least its symptoms. Many drugs have been developed to that do just that. Inflammation can be reversed by anti-inflammatory agents like histamine, leukotriene blockers, and mast cell stabilizers. Mucus production can be controlled with expectorants. In extreme cases, things like epinephrine can be used to open airways.
Asthma Prevention
Perhaps the best way to avoid asthma attacks, however, is through prevention. Identifying and avoiding things that trigger an asthma attack is the method almost all asthmatics must employ. There are other options, too, such as a change in diet. Many foods are known to have anti-inflammatory properties, including most fruits and vegetables, soy products, and green tea.
New Developments
A new sensor for predicting asthma attacks is currently in human clinical trials. It works by detecting the amount of nitric oxide in an air sample (collected by blowing into the instrument). An increase nitric oxide concentration in exhaled air has been correlated with airway inflammation. In fact, asthmatics often present increased nitric oxide concentrations up to 3 weeks before an asthma attack.
This new handheld sensor could allow asthmatics to monitor the amount of nitric oxide in their breath, much like diabetics monitor their blood-glucose levels. If the nitric oxide sensor provided as much help as a glucose monitor, potentially thousands of lives could be saved by preventing severe asthma attacks.
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http://www.umm.edu/non_trauma/asthma.htm
http://respiratory-lung.health-cares.net/control-asthma-attacks.php
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0820/is_2003_May/ai_100109448/pg_3
http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?p=672
Written by April Wilson for MicroNutra Health™