last year claimed that 20 % of boys and 15 % of girls aged 8-11 had been diagnosed with asthma, a fourfold rise in just 20 years.
. .. Why is asthma increasing so rapidly? No one really knows, of course, although in my opinion, at least some of this increase is due to over-diagnosis because over the last 2 decades, it seems to me that every wheeze has been labelled as asthma, especially in younger kids, even though wheezing can be caused by non-asthmatic conditions, some of which are – happily – only temporary. The key thing to remember is that not every episode of wheezing is a sign of asthma, and that’s especially an important consideration for parents of kids who’ve been diagnosed with asthma on the basis of a single episode of wheezing after a cold or flu without tests to back that diagnosis.
. .. That said, there’s also no doubt that the rate of asthma is increasing, and that certainly has at least something to do with changes in our environment. Populations that live in areas of high air pollution, for example, have far higher rates of asthma than people who live in areas where the air is much cleaner.
. .. Interestingly, though, living in environments that are “too clean” might also raise the risk of developing asthma. In this ”cleanliness” theory, it’s postulated that when kids are brought up in environments without “enough” exposure to the bacteria, viruses, critters, dirt - what my mother much more accurately refers to with the wonderful Yiddish word of “schmutz” - those kids subsequently tend to have much higher rates of all sorts of all “atopic” conditions including allergies, asthma, and eczema. That’s because, this theory proposes, when a body is not exposed to enough “schmutz” early in life, it fails to learn that those environmental insults (bacteria, dust, dirt, etc.) that totally surround us are actually harmless, so later on when that person is re-exposed to those same environmental insults, their immune systems over-respond to the putative dangers posed by those elements leading to “protective” symptoms such as wheezing, coughing, mucus production, etc.
. .. Whatever the cause, the key things for an asthmatic are to 1) have their condition diagnosed correctly, 2) to recognize the triggers for their symptoms, and 3) to properly control their asthma.
. .. So, if you can think back to the beginning of this article (if, like me, you can’t remember back that far, it’s OK to cheat and read it again, which is what I had to do), you’ll recall that wheezing is one of the cardinal symptoms of asthma. But what is less well known is that coughing, chest tightness, shortness of breath, and mucus production are also very common symptoms of asthma, |
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