What You Need to Know

about Asthma

"For breath is life, and if you breathe well, you will live long on earth." Sanskrit Proverb

The things we take most for granted, such as the ability to breathe freely, are truly the things we miss the most if we no longer have them. Those with a chronic pulmonary disorder like asthma must face each day wondering whether they'll come into contact with a particularly bad trigger, when an attack may strike, and just how serious it will be.

And the number of asthma sufferers in the United States is on the rise, hitting unprecedented levels, according to research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.1 The findings suggest that as of 2009, close to one in every 12 Americans - including one in every 10 children - are asthmatic.

The study, which took place between 2001 and 2009, showed a rising rate of asthma no matter how the demographics were broken down. The numbers increased for both genders, as well as among white people, black people, and those of Hispanic origin. Although all groups were affected, the demographic that showed the greatest increase was black children, of whom 17 percent were found to have asthma, up from 11.4 percent in 2001.

The researchers determined that asthma prevalence has risen a stunning 12.3 percent between 2001 and 2009. In 2001, 20.1 million diagnoses of asthma were made, which meant it affected 7.3 percent of the population. By 2009, that number jumped to 24.6 million diagnoses, increasing to 8.2 percent of Americans afflicted. And children were disproportionately the sufferers, with 9.6 percent of children overall developing asthma and 13.5 percent of children from lower income families with the chronic disease.

So, with a major asthma trigger such as cigarette smoking at its lowest level in decades, why would a rise in asthma cases be taking place now? Because there are many other irritants surrounding us daily in the environment, and the main culprit causing asthma is actually internal as in a faulty immune system.

Asthma is a chronic disease that affects your breathing. People with asthma experience an inflammation of the lining of the bronchial tubes. Asthma affects the airways, which begin just below the throat as a single tube called the trachea. The trachea is situated immediately in front of the esophagus, the passageway that connects the throat with the stomach. The trachea divides into two slightly narrower tubes called the main bronchi (each one is called a bronchus).

Each main bronchus then divides into progressively smaller tubes - the smallest are called bronchioles - to carry air to and from microscopic air spaces called alveoli. It is in the alveoli that the important work of the lung occurs, exchanging oxygen in the air for carbon dioxide in the blood. The airways (trachea, bronchi, and bronchioles) are surrounded by a type of involuntary muscle known as smooth muscle.

The airways are lined with a mucus membrane that secretes a fine layer of mucus and fluid. This mucus washes the airways to remove any bacteria, dirt, or other foreign material that might get into our lungs. The overreaction or hyper-responsiveness of the airways results in bronchospasm, which is excessive contraction or spasm of the bronchial smooth muscle. The airways also become inflamed with swelling of the bronchial mucous membrane (mucosa) and secretion of excessive thick mucus that is difficult to expel. It is part of the evaluation process to identify the role of each of these physiologic components in asthma.

When you have asthma, your bronchioles tend to be constantly red and swollen and are easily irritated in response to triggers/allergens, such as pollen and cigarette smoke. Exposure to these allergens, then, causes the walls of the bronchioles to become even more swollen and for the muscles to tighten.

This narrows the passages even more so that even less air reaches your alveolar sacs. And as if that weren't enough, when you have asthma, mucus is also produced in larger than normal amounts, which clogs your airways yet even more, making it even harder to breathe, and resulting in even more severe asthma symptoms. The immune system of asthmatics tends to overreact to certain allergens. In people who do not have asthma, these allergens either produce no response, or a very minimal one.