Asthma is an allergic condition resulting from the reaction of the system to one or more allergens. It is the most troublesome of the respiratory diseases. The asthma patient gets frequent attacks of breathlessness, in between which he is completely normal.
Symptoms
Asthma is an ancient Greek word meaning ” panting or short-drawn breath”. Patients suffering from asthma appear to be gasping for breath. Actually, they have more difficulty in breathing out than breathing in and it is caused by a spasm of the smaller air passage in the lung.
The effect is to blow the lungs up because the patient cannot drive the air properly out of the lungs before he has to take another breath. All asthmatics have more difficulty at night, especially during sleep.
The onset of asthma may be abrupt or gradual. Sudden onsets are often preceded by a spell of coughing. When the onset is gradual, the attack is usually brought on by respiratory infection. A severe attack causes an increase in heart-beat and respiratory rates and the patient feels restless and fatigued.
There may be coughing, tightness in the chest, profuse, sweating and vomiting. There may also be abdominal pain, especially if coughing is severe. The wheezing sound identified with asthma is produced by the air being pushed through the narrowed bronchi.
Causes
Asthma is caused by a variety of factors. For many it is due to an allergy which may be caused by weather conditions, food, drugs, perfumes and other irritants which vary with different individuals. Allergies to dust are the most common.
Some persons are sensitive to the various forms of dust like cotton dust, wheat dust and paper dust, certain types of pollens, animal hair, fungi and insects. Foods which generally cause allergic reactions are wheat, eggs, milk, chocolates, beans,potato and beef.
For others, asthma may result from psychic factors. According to some studies about 25 per cent of the young asthmatics have in common a “deeper-seated emotional insecurity and an intense need for parental love and specific protection.”
Heredity also plays an important role, and it has been estimated that when both parents have asthma or hay fever, in more than 75 per cent cases, the offspring also have allergic reactions.
Asthma has also been attributed to malnutrition. According to late Dr. Royal Lee, a nutrition expert, malnutrition in general, with adrenal insufficiency, hypoglycemia and intolerance for carbohydrates are the factors leading to asthma in adults. Dr. Carl J. Reich of Canada also considers asthma as a maladaptive state of the body due to deficiency of certain nutritional elements.