"Right now, we estimate asthma rates by extrapolating from drug sales or telephone surveys. Essentially, we're working in the dark." 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. |
In the case of asthma, there is stiffening of the cell membranes of the alveoli. This causes an entrapment of carbon dioxide and lack of oxygen - leaving you gasping for air.
The inhalant medication given by the physician is a neurological blocker which shorts-circuit the process and allows a relaxation of those cell membranes, and the carbon dioxide is then released and oxygen gets absorbed. The cell membranes permeability allows for normal osmosis to take place in the alveoli (lungs).
Henry W.Wright (Be in Health) has over a decade been healing asthma successfully. Wright established that asthma is being rooted in fear, anxiety and abandonment, mostly concerning relationships. When your body senses fear and anxiety, the hypothalamus gland causes ACTH hormone to be secreted. ACTH goes into the bloodstream and docks at a receptor cell in the alveoli, producing cell stiffening. Thus we see the respiratory problems and gasping for air.
"It has nothing to do with what you breathe. It has nothing to do with airway obstruction. It has nothing to do with allergens, irritants, dust, dander, pollen that goes through breathing. It is triggered by something internally." ~Wright | A survey by Miyaoka (Japan Medical Journal 1996) revealed some cases in which doctors treating outpatients realized that the patients had some psychological problems. These patients were found to represent 56% of all the patients with bronchial asthma. Muramatsu's treatment for asthma involves addressing more than physical, chemical and biological stressors, therapies also dealt with other triggers including:
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