Asthma triggers

Allergies are the biggest trigger for asthma, but some people have asthma attacks when exercising or when under stress.  Some cases of asthma don’t seem to have any obvious trigger.

Below are some asthmatic triggers.  For anyone who has sensitive airways, it’s best to avoid them.

Avoid chlorine
Tiny chlorine particles can trigger breathing problems.  So stay away from public pools or other water treated with chlorine.

Don’t be overweight or obese.
If you are, your odds of developing asthma increase by 50%, according to a recent review of 330,000 subjects by researchers at Denver’s National Jewish Health center. They estimate that excess weight accounts for 250,000 new cases of adult asthma a year. Obesity also raises children’s risk of asthma.

Exercise regularly
Even though exercise can trigger asthma attacks, a review of studies on the subject shows that asthmatics benefit from exercise on the whole, as it improves their cardiopulmonary fitness.

Asthmatics who exercised regularly showed improvement in:

• Maximum ventilation
• Maximal oxygen uptake
• Work capacity, and
• Maximum heart rate.

Exercise showed no significant effect in other measures such as expiratory air-flow rate, expiratory volume, and days of wheezing. There was no evidence suggesting that regular exercise worsens asthmatic symptoms.

The review examined 13 studies, involving more that 450 total participants. It may be advisable for asthmatics to seek counseling on ways to prevent and treat exercise-induced asthma.

Forget fireworks
That funny smell in the air after a fire-works explosion comes from sulfur dioxide and other chemicals.  They can irritate your lungs.

Guard against gas fumes
Do you wheeze while fixing dinner?  If your stove uses gas, it gives off nitrogen dioxide, a pollutant.  Researchers have found that people who cook with gas stoves are at least twice as likely to develop breathing problems like asthma.  If your kitchen causes you to cough, it may be time to trade in for an electric stove.

Optimize your vitamin D
Recent studies show that asthmatics are more likely to be deficient in vitamin D than the general population.  So, optimize your “D.”  Get out in the sun regularly, and if you can’t, take vitamin D-3 supplementation.  D-3 is considered the most effective part of the D vitamin.

Take breathing troubles seriously

1. Get tested for allergies. Research has shown that 75% of senior asthma sufferers tested positive for indoor allergies such as cat or dog hair, dust mites, and cockroaches. Knowing what aggravates your asthma means you can take steps to protect yourself.
2. Beware what you breathe when you go outside.
   Sometimes the air itself is polluted with unseen chemicals that cause serious breathing problems.
3. Put your house to rights. If you have allergies, start making your home more asthma-friendly.  This might mean giving up furry pets, stuffed animals, encasing your mattress in plastic, removing carpet with wood or vinyl floors, etc.  Do whatever it takes to avoid any thing in the air that will bother you.
4. Purify your indoor air. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), indoor air is up to five times more polluted than outdoor air, on average. So, considering the fact that you spend about 90 percent of your life indoors, you may want to consider installing a good air purifier that is easy, safe, cost-effective, and leaves behind no dangerous chemical residues (which are often just as bad as the substances you’re trying to clean away.)
5. Consider the hygiene hypothesis– There’s a tendency in our modern culture to be obsessive about cleanliness, especially in children. However, this may not be as healthy as initially thought. It appears that being exposed to common bacterial and viral infections as a child can be instrumental in providing the stimulus to your immune system to prevent asthma naturally.
6. Ask your doctor about medication. Inhaled steroids are said to slash hospitalization in half and deaths by 90%.

Watch out for workplace contaminants
The air might seem perfectly fine, but it could contain dust, fumes, gasses and chemicals.  If you’re a carpenter, concrete worker, drug manufacturer, printer, food process worker, spray painter, or electrician, you’re at an increased risk.

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