Asthma is an episodic constriction of the bronchial tubes. It is a common disorder of both children and adults, often regarded as mysterious and frustrating to treat.
The condition is marked by wheezing (especially on expiration), coughing, and difficulty in breathing. Asthma can appear and disappear without warning. If an attack is severe enough, it can kill.
Relief may be in your cupboard...
Sources:
http://www.top10homeremedies.com/home-remedies/home-remedies-for-asthma.html
http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/ART00306/asthma.html
The condition is marked by wheezing (especially on expiration), coughing, and difficulty in breathing. Asthma can appear and disappear without warning. If an attack is severe enough, it can kill.
The immediate cause of an asthmatic attack is tightening of the muscular bands that regulate the size of the bronchial tubes. These muscles are controlled by nerves, but what triggers the nerves to make airways constrict inappropriately is not clear. The triggers for asthma can be primarily allergic or primarily emotional or induced by exercise or respiratory infection, or it can occur with no obvious causes. It is now being considered an inflammatory disorder.
The "hygiene hypothesis" is a proposed explanation for why allergies and asthma are now epidemic, especially in developed countries. The hypothesis holds that children who grow up in crowded and dirtier environments are less likely to develop these ailments than youngsters raised in cleaner, more protected environments. The idea is that the developing immune systems of less privileged kids are exposed to lots of germs from an early age and so become stronger and more protective of health. The hypothesis recently got a big boost in credibility. Researchers at Duke University Medical Center compared the antibodies in the blood of laboratory rats and mice, which grow in a virtually germ-free environment, with those of wild rats and mice. All of the wild rodents had higher levels of IgG and IgE, classes of antibodies associated with immune and allergic diseases, but the wild rodents' antibodies did not tend to bind to the rat's own cells, as did the antibodies produced by the hygienically raised rodents. Instead, the wild rodents' antibodies efficiently and effectively attacked invading organisms. The research was written up in the August, 2006, Scandinavian Journal of Immunology.
Despite this intriguing evidence, we need a lot more proof from human studies before the hygiene hypothesis makes the leap from theory to fact, and I wouldn't worry about a home being "too clean." In fact, random pollution of the home environment has its own drawbacks. Children who breathe secondhand smoke are more likely to develop asthma, and among all youngsters with asthma, those who breathe secondhand smoke have more frequent attacks).
Relief may be in your cupboard...
- oranges
- lemons
- vitamin C
- garlic
- antioxidants
- onions
- honey
- eucalyptus
- black coffee
- black tea
- figs
- ginger
Sources:
http://www.top10homeremedies.com/home-remedies/home-remedies-for-asthma.html
http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/ART00306/asthma.html
