ASTHMA

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease. This inflammation in the lung causes significant fatigue and a depleted immune system. When the immune system fights a chronic infection or pollutants in the air, chronic inflammation takes its toll on asthmatics, especially children. Kids seem to fight one infection after another continually, and their energy level is nowhere near that of children with healthy airways.

In the early 1970s, physicians believed the underlying problem with asthma was bronchospasm. This is a condition in which the muscles surrounding the airways go into spasm and narrow the lungs' passageways, which results in tightness of the chest, shortness of breath, and wheezing sound. The first line of therapy was using theophylline or albuterol, which only relieved bronchospasm. If the condition is serious, one must get admitted to a hospital where the doctors add another anti-inflammatory drug called prednisone.

After a few years, however, research started to reveal that the underlying problem with asthma was a chronic inflammatory response. The therapies changed considerably and shelved the theophylline-like drugs favoring anti-inflammatory drugs (inhaled steroids or Intal) as first-line therapy. The research done in the past few decades found that the underlying cause of asthma, and almost every chronic lung disease, is oxidative stress.

Looking around us shows that our current generation of children worldwide to more airborne pollutants than any previous generation. I have seen children who haven't reached two years of age suffering from severe asthma. The amount of drugs children are taking to breathe is mind-boggling.

The drugs aim to decrease this inflammatory response and relax the accompanying bronchospasm. Nevertheless, the underlying root problem, oxidative stress, remains unaddressed.

I have read several clinical trials in which patients with asthma showed significantly depleted antioxidants in the extracellular fluid lining of their lungs. Even when the patient does not have acute asthmatic attacks, the antioxidants like vitamin C, vitamin E, and beta carotene are found at low levels. They also exhibited markedly higher levels of by-products produced by oxidative stress leading to chronic inflammation and hyperactivity of the airways.