The hygiene hypothesis
This suggests asthma may be an outgrowth of normal human immunologic response run amok. "The hygiene hypothesis suggests that the immune system drifts naturally toward allergy unless it is pushed away from allergy at birth by having infection to fight," says Adkinson, Baltimore director of the Childhood Asthma Management Program , the largest and longest study conducted on children with asthma. "As we have become cleaner, as we have used increasing numbers of antibiotics and vaccines, the immune system has begun to drift back toward allergic reaction."

Certain observations support this theory. For instance, early day care participation seems to protect against asthma, as does exposure in the home to cats and dogs, or farm life. Babies born into these environments tend to have less asthma, it is thought, because they are exposed to sources of bacterial DNA that serve to push the immune system away from allergies.


Imagine trying to breathe in all your air through a pinched straw. That is how many asthma sufferers describe an acute attack.

Cost of asthma
"Asthma's estimated yearly cost to society is $11 billion and growing rapidly.  By the year 2020, the overall cost to society for the projected 29 million Americans with asthma will run to $18 billion," says Shelley Hearne of Trust for America's Health.


The pesticide link?

Paim Lein, PhD, has been investigating the role of pesticides in the asthma epidemic. Lein, an assistant professor in Environmental Health Sciences: "This suggests that the pesticide somehow alters the nerve function controlling the smooth muscle lining the airway. It contracts, and restrains airflow, which is a hallmark feature of asthma."
Consider: During the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, city officials instituted draconian bans on automobile use in the downtown area to prevent gridlock. A 24-hour-a-day public transportation system and an additional 1,000 buses were brought on line. According to a study published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association , the resultant 28 percent drop in ozone concentrations during the Olympic Games was associated with a 44 percent decline in asthma-related emergency care, urgent care, and hospitalizations. One immediate way to decrease the burden of asthma, the article concludes, is to decrease ozone and particulate matter concentrations from automobile emissions.

Nerves?
It has been known for more than 80 years that nerves can communicate in the body by releasing a substance called acetylcholine, which is stored in vesicles at the nerve endings. Acetylcholine acts as a transmitter that can decrease cardiac contraction, increase digestive contractions, or stimulate a number of other bodily functions. Fryer discovered a specific subtype of receptor at the nerve endings—now known as the M2 receptor—functions to inhibit the release of additional acetylcholine, [acting] as a brake on the process.

But if the function of the M2 receptor is blocked or turned off, additional acetylcholine can be released, greatly increasing the severity of the asthma attack, leading to airway hyper-responsiveness and, in extreme cases, death.

“I no longer have patience for certain things, not because I’ve become arrogant, but simply because I reached a point in my life where I do not want to waste more time with what displeases me or hurts me. I have no patience for cynicism, excessive criticism and demands of any nature. I lost the will to please those who do not like me, to love those who do not love me and to smile at those who do not want to smile at me. 

I no longer spend a single minute on those who lie or want to manipulate. I decided not to coexist anymore with pretense, hypocrisy, dishonesty and cheap praise. I do not tolerate selective erudition nor academic arrogance. I do not adjust either to popular gossiping. I hate conflict and comparisons. I believe in a world of opposites and that’s why I avoid people with rigid and inflexible personalities. In friendship I dislike the lack of loyalty and betrayal. I do not get along with those who do not know how to give a compliment or a word of encouragement. Exaggerations bore me and I have difficulty accepting those who do not like animals. And on top of everything I have no patience for anyone who does not deserve my patience.” - Meryl Streep