Since exercise is what can bring on an asthma attack, should one be condemned to a sedentary life without exercise or exertion?

Symptoms of exercise-induced asthma

While some shortness of breath during exercise and feeling a bit tired afterwards is common and normal, with asthma induced by exercise, these reactions are more severe.

The symptoms of exercise-induced asthma may be triggered a few minutes after starting exercise, i.e. during exercise or some minutes after completing a workout.

Symptoms may include the characteristic wheezing, pain or tightness in the chest, feeling very tired, shortness of breath, labored breathing and the inability to exercise properly.

Sometimes the symptoms of this kind of asthma maybe misinterpreted by the person thinking that they are just out of shape when in fact they may be experiencing the symptoms of asthma.

Severe symptoms could manifest when the symptoms are exacerbated by environmental allergens such as dust, smoke, and pollen and so on. Severe symptoms could include an altered level of consciousness. In some cases the person may suffer Cynosis because of lowered levels of oxygen in the blood.

Very often after the asthma attack, for about an hour or so, the asthma sufferer may be able to exercise and experience few or no symptoms. On the other hand, a milder, recurring attack could take place in the hours following the attack which could be triggered even without exercise.

Management of exercise-induced asthma

While in some other types of asthma, it may be a simple matter to avoid the asthma triggers after identifying them, it is less easy with exercise-induced asthma since exercise it good and necessary for health and it may actually be difficult to have a completely sedentary life.

Also rather contradictorily, exercise can help you remain in good shape and actually reduce the frequency and severity of the asthma symptoms. So it is important to continue to exercise even if one has exercise-induced asthma.

To avoid severe symptoms of exercise-induced asthma, Mayo Clinic recommends that the person should warm up with gentle exercise before going for the more demanding activities. Higher levels of humidity also help to ease symptoms.

It is recommended that one should steer clear of other allergens (pet dander, smoke, pollen) as well as infections (such as colds) that could exacerbate and worsen symptoms of exercise-induced asthma. If one does have a cold exercise should be avoided for the duration.

Proper breathing technique should be learnt – breathing through the nose is better since it warms air before it reaches the lungs. If exercising in cold weather cover the mouth and nose for the same reason; to prevent cold air from triggering an attack.

Though it isn’t possible to cure exercise-induced asthma, it is possible to reduce the severity of symptoms and to obtain proper treatments to keep it under control.

Children who grow up on farms are obviously going to be more exposed to a great variety of microorganisms when compared with their peers in urban and suburban areas, found the study that was conducted in the Bavarian region of Germany.

The study found that kids living on farms were 30 to 50% less likely to have asthma when compared with their urban counterparts.

The researchers collected samples of domestic interiors, household dust and so on, to gauge the fungal and bacterial DNA of the samples.

They found that the farm kids were routinely exposed to a greater variety of microbes and bacteria on a daily basis, and that these microbes and bacteria seemed to protect the health of the children.

It was the diversity of the kind of bacteria that was seen to be responsible for the children’s resistance to asthma because some of the farm bacteria could actually be helpful in battling other harmful bacteria.

The constricted airways and inflammation that characterize an asthma attack can often occur a long time before the outer manifestation can be felt by the asthma sufferer.

The device can sense this inflammation by measuring the Nitrogen oxide levels present in the breath of the person and if there is inflammation of the bronchial tubes.

According to Dr Maximilian Fleischer, who is among the people involved in the development of the sensor, this is the first time that a sensor of this sort has been developed in such a convenient and portable size.

Similar sensors have been available before, but their use has been confined to doctors’ clinics and hospitals hitherto. The machines have so far been too big and expensive for use by individuals.

Since the machine is very sensitive, it can sense an asthma attack well before it actually occurs – this can help sufferers plan their schedules and also adjust medication and/or obtain advance medical treatment.

There is home that similar devices could have other applications, such as detecting fires, acetone, and even lung cancer.

• Close to 25 million people in the united states; which is a little over 8 percent of the population, have asthma.
• Of these, over 7 million asthma sufferers are children.
• An estimated 3,395 deaths resulting from asthma were seen to have occurred in 2008.
• Over 10 million school days and over 14 million work days are lost each year due to asthma.
• Each year there are about 1.75 million trips made to the emergency room by asthma sufferers, and as many as 456,000 individuals needed hospitalization due to their condition.
• 52% of asthmatics, or 4.2% of the population report having had at least one attack in 2009.

Another study has indicated that a certain type of mold can grow inside the lungs – Aspergillus fumigatus (A. fumigatus). This mold growing in lungs could be responsible for asthma among those who are allergic to mold, since it can cause severe damage to the lungs.

Though it is rather early to draw firm conclusions, zinc, vitamins A, D and E and fresh produce such as fruit and veggies seem to be able to protect people against allergies and asthma.

So as of now it is not required for parents to change their diets in order to protect their kids from these conditions.

Researchers examined several studies concerning people’s diet and their risk of allergy and asthma by looking at the diet of women and other factors.

It was seen in some of the studies, that fruit and vegetable intake and healthier diets were linked to lower risk of asthma and allergies. In particular higher levels of vitamin A was seen to be associated with a 75% lower risk of developing asthma.

Also women who ate Vitamin D rich foods during pregnancy, such as fatty fish, and vitamin E rich food such as nuts and seeds, were seen to lower their risk of asthma in children by about 30 to 40%.

As much as 80% lower risk of asthma was seen to result from a Mediterranean diet that is rich in fish, vegetables, olive oil, nuts and so on.

A similar protective effects was seen to be imparted by treating mice with the bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H pylori), a bacterium that colonizes the stomach. These bacteria are known to cause ulcers and also heighten gastric cancer risk.

According to researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston, these findings could help to find an immunological mechanism that could support the “hygiene hypothesis” which postulates that the reason for higher incidences of asthma are the successful lowering of rates of childhood infections.

So this study seems to underline this understanding that certain infections are able to offer protection against a person developing asthma. This doesn’t mean however, that doctors are going to go about infecting people with various diseases just so they can be protected against asthma.

What this research may well do however, is it could help medical practitioners replicate the positive aspects of an infection while avoiding the negative impacts so that effective strategies for preventing asthma can be developed.

Though earlier the study of the impact of smoking bans was mostly confined to adults, a new study examined how smoking bans in workplaces, bars and restaurants impact kids.

Those counties in the United States that have smoke free laws were less likely to have children and teens with asthma than those counties who do not have such laws in place, found the study.

Even kids who had asthma, were found to have fewer persistent problems such as night time coughing bouts, wheezing and so on, if they were living in smoke free environments.

Though it may not be the antismoking laws that were responsible for the phenomenon per se, there were other factors that explained the link according to researchers – race and family income were seen to be contributing factors.

Though it was found that minority children living in urban areas are at increased risk; in spite of these elevated risk factors it was seen that smoking bans are seen to be connected with lowered risk of persistent asthma symptoms.

The chemical structure of coffee resembles theophylline, which is common medication for asthma sufferers. This medication helps to ease the airways and symptoms of an asthma attack such as shortness of breath, wheezing and constricted airways occur.

It has been found that when coffee is digested and broken down by the digestive process in the body, small amounts of theophyline are in fact produced.

When the results of 6 clinical trials were examined by researchers of the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, it was found that caffeine produced small improvements in the functioning of airways among asthmatics. And this positive impact was seen to last for up to 4 hours. Even a small amount of caffeine could improve lung function for up to two hours.

If however one thinks that one makes coffee a replacement for medication they would be wrong. While momentary relief may be obtained from caffeine, this is not substantial enough. Further, too much coffee intake can have negative side effects so it is best to continue to limit intake of items with caffeine such as tea, coffee, chocolate and so on.

In the study, 14,000 children were studied from their pregnancy until their 8^th year of life by a team led by Seif Shaheen, Professor of Respiratory Epidemiology at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry.

Mothers were asked about instances of using paracetamol during their pregnancy and also if and when children were administered paracetamol during infancy.

As to the extent to which paracetamol use impacted a child’s asthma risk, this was seen to be dependent upon the antioxidant gene variations that were seen to be present in the mother.

The researchers said that randomized clinical trials were required to confirm this premise, however this research, which was published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology seemed to add further credence to the theory that prenatal paracetamol exposure impacts the way in which the development of childhood asthma occurs.

In a recent study, researchers measured the impact of certain compounds; propylene glycol and glycol ethers, known as PGEs on kids. It was found that the kids, who breathed in these fumes, had higher rates of eczema, asthma and stuffy noses.

The researchers say that not only could PGEs exacerbate the situation for those with allergies and asthma, it could also be responsible for actually causing these problems.  Even in low concentrations, PGEs raise concerns particularly in the case of babies and young children.

However, the good news is that swimming could be good for asthmatics, according to a study published by the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Swimming was seen to increase lung function and therefore lower chances of the symptoms of asthma and researchers reached this conclusion after many years of data collection.

The conclusion reached by the researchers was that regularly swimming in chlorinated pools is not responsible for causing asthma; rather it could help to improve lung health and thereby help asthmatics.