Healing Asthma Naturally: With Herbs, Foods, Probiotics and Lifestyle Changes

By Case Adams

Using over a thousand research studies, this book comprehensively demonstrates the underlying causes of asthma while providing hundreds of clinically and scientifically verified inexpensive natural strategies - some thousands of years old - that have been used successfully to eliminate the causes and symptoms asthma.

(Note: The information provided in this audiobook is for educational and scientific research purposes only. The information is not medical or legal advice and is not a substitute for medical care or professional advice. Information provided is not to be construed as health or lifestyle advice. A medical practitioner or other expert should be consulted prior to any significant change in diet, supplementation, exercise or any other lifestyle change.)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Logical Books
• Release date: Jan 22, 2024
• ISBN: 9798215177570

Case Adams

“One summer decades ago, as a pre-med major working my way through college, I hurt my back digging ditches. I visited a doctor who prescribed me with an opioid medication. I didn’t take the drug but this brought about a change of heart regarding my career in medicine. I decided against prescribing drugs and sought an alternative path. During college and afterwards, I got involved in the food business, working at farms, kitchens, and eventually management in the organic food and herbal supplement businesses. I also continued my natural health studies, and eventually completed post-graduate degrees in Naturopathy, Integrative Health Sciences and Natural Health Sciences. I also received diplomas in Homeopathy, Aromatherapy, Bach Flower Remedies, Colon Hydrotherapy, Blood Chemistry, Obstetrics, Clinical Nutritional Counseling, and certificates in Pain Management and Contact Tracing/Case Management along the way. During my practicum/internships, I was fortunate to have been mentored and trained under leading holistic M.D.s, D.O.s, N.D.s, acupuncturists, physical therapists, herbalists and massage therapists, working with them and their patients. I also did grand rounds at a local hospital and assisted in pain treatments. I was board certified as an Alternative Medical Practitioner and practiced for several years at a local medical/rehabilitation clinic advising patients on natural therapies.“My journey into writing about alternative medicine began about 9:30 one evening after I finished with a patient at the clinic I practiced at over a decade ago. I had just spent two hours showing how improving diet, sleep and other lifestyle choices, and using selected herbal medicines with other natural strategies can help our bodies heal themselves. As I drove home that night, I realized the need to get this knowledge out to more people. So I began writing about natural health with a mission to reach those who desperately need this information and are not getting it in mainstream media. The health strategies in my books and articles are backed by scientific evidence combined with traditional wisdom handed down through natural medicines for thousands of years.I am hoping to accomplish my mission as a young boy to help people. I am continuously learning and renewing my knowledge. I know my writing can sometimes be a bit scientific, but I am working to improve this. But I hope this approach also provides the clearest form of evidence that natural healing strategies are not unsubstantiated anecdotal claims. Natural health strategies, when done right, can be safer and more effective than many conventional treatments, with centuries of proven safety. This is why most pharmaceuticals are based on compounds from plants or other natural elements. I hope you will help support my mission and read some of my writings. They were written with love yet grounded upon science. Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have.”Contact: case(at)caseadams.com

Book preview

Healing Asthma Naturally

With Herbs, Foods, Probiotics and Lifestyle Changes

By Case Adams, Naturopath

Healing Asthma Naturally: With Herbs, Foods, Probiotics and Lifestyle Changes

Copyright © 2024 Case Adams

LOGICAL BOOKS

Wilmington, Delaware

www.logicalbooks.org

All rights reserved.

Printed in USA

Front cover image © AZP Worldwide

The information provided in this book is for educational and scientific research purposes only. The information is not medical advice and is not a substitute for medical care or personal health advice. A medical practitioner or other health expert should be consulted prior to any significant change in lifestyle, diet, herbs or supplement usage. There shall neither be liability nor responsibility should the information provided in this book be used in any manner other than for the purposes of education and scientific research. While animal research may be referenced in the text, neither the author nor publisher supports the use of animals for research purposes.

Publishers Cataloging in Publication Data

Adams, Case

Healing Asthma Naturally: With Herbs, Foods, Probiotics and Lifestyle Changes

First Edition

1. Medicine. 2. Health.

Bibliography and References; Index

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011927605

ISBN-13 ebook: 978-1-936251-20-9

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter One: Asthma Reality Check

Chapter Two: The Physiology of Asthma

Chapter Three: Asthma Triggers

Chapter Four: The Underlying Causes of Asthma

Chapter Five: Validated Natural Asthma Strategies

References and Bibliography

Other Books by the Author

Introduction

This is not a simple book, because asthma is not a simple condition.

Asthma is growing amongst the world’s population. Making matters worse, most conventional health professionals consider asthma a lifelong sentence controlled only through the constant use of medications.

The same dialog also assumes that asthma is inherited. We have little control over its incidence or potential resolution—according to many.

This means that not only is asthma irreversible, but we have little ability to prevent it. Is this really true? Are asthmatics simply condemned to genetic anomaly and a sentence of medications?

While this book provides the scientific validity in answering these questions, we already know that asthma is reversible. How do we know this? We know this because every year, millions of childhood asthma sufferers ‘outgrow’ their asthma at some point during adolescence.

So how did they ‘outgrow’ their asthma if asthma is not reversible? Many health professionals would attribute this ‘outgrowing’ of asthma as accidental: The child was merely one of the lucky ones. Many health professionals describe this ‘outgrowing’ of asthma as spontaneous and without reason, at best a genetic predisposition. In other words, nothing about the child’s immune system, diet or lifestyle contributed in any way to the ‘outgrowing’ of the asthma. It was simply an arbitrary or genetic event.

This of course begs the fundamental questions: What is asthma? What causes asthma? Is asthma simply an accidental event? A bad roll of the dice? Something to blame mom and dad for?

These are critical questions for anyone who has or whose family members have asthma. Or someone who treats asthmatics. Knowing what causes asthma is absolutely critical to understanding what can be done to avoid it.

More importantly, the causes of asthma are the leading elements that deem investigation when considering how to reverse the course or at least the worsening of asthma. They are absolutely necessary for asthma prevention.

Yes, humanity has been dealing with asthma for thousands of years—not at these proportions, but nevertheless so. Where were the inhalers and steroids for all those sufferers? There were none. Did children die in epidemic proportions of asthma before these medications were invented? Do we read of fatal asthma pandemics like the black plague or chicken pox among traditional societies that did not have the asthma ‘control’ medications?

In contrast, the current rate of asthma cases, as we’ll show, is at epidemic proportions and growing, especially among industrial societies where ‘control’ medication use is ubiquitous. In other words, traditional societies had more ‘control’ over asthma than do our theoretically advanced modern societies.

As we will show in this text, many traditional therapies had very successful strategies to manage and even reverse asthma using natural methods.

In recent decades, conventional medicine has categorized these very same natural methods as simply old wives’ tales or unsubstantiated voo-doo. They are not proven effective in clinical studies. But is this really true? Certainly this is true that natural therapies—for which there is no patent protection—do not garner the research focus that patented pharmaceuticals do. Natural therapies have been handicapped in the shadow of pharmaceutical giant research budgets. The incentive provided by the patent has enabled research funding to be tied to profits for the synthetic therapies of modern medicine, even if those chemicals were based on constituents found in plants—as many are. So it is an unfair comparison.

As we will show, emerging research from around the world is illustrating increasingly that traditional therapies—many thousands of years old—can also provide effective asthma ‘control,’ and more. Curiously, some of this research has even come from prestigious U.S. medical schools.

Some of these researchers, in fact, are no longer calling traditional treatments voo-doo. Some are even applying to the FDA for drug licenses.

And all of this still ignores the prime evidence for many of these traditional techniques: Their successful use among thousands and even millions of patients over the centuries.

In fact, the handing down of traditional treatments from generation to generation provided repeated clinical study through each generation in these cultures. Each generation used the formulations and tools of their ancestors on their patients, noting their successes and failures as they passed them down—sometimes improved—to the next generation. Therapies that did not work were abandoned, and those that worked continued through the tradition. With each generation came renewed questions of the efficacy of the remedies they were given. This of course resulted in a greater sense of confidence in these traditional therapies.

This screening out of poor medicines, to be replaced by better ones is not much different in essence from the clinical research practiced in western medicine. In modern clinical medicine, a pharmaceutical is experimented with, and then prescribed until it is found to be toxic or ineffective. It is then is replaced by one that is (hopefully) less toxic and more effective.

The main difference is that most pharmaceutical medicines are not much more than a century old, while the herbs and therapies of traditional medicines have undergone centuries—even millennia—of clinical use.

Or were our ancestors simply stupid idiots? Was there no intelligence and scientific credibility among our ancestors beyond a century ago?

It boils down to respect: Traditional medicines had a respect for nature. They saw nature as the great healer, and her wealthy combination of herbal plants for all sorts of different ailments was seen as having far more intelligence and complexity than any they could devise.

Modern western medicine, in contrast, has no such respect. Modern western medicine, in fact, has practically ignored the wealth of healing effects that nature can provide. The assumption of modern western medicine is that man can produce a better medicine than nature can. The assumption of modern medicine is that pharmaceuticals are safer than herbal medicines. Is this true? Let’s consider the evidence:

The Journal of the American Medical Association reported that 2,216,000 Americans were either hospitalized, permanently disabled, or died as a result of pharmaceutical use in 1994 alone. The study, done at the University of Toronto, also calculated that approximately 106,000 people die each year from taking correctly prescribed FDA-approved pharmaceuticals. This does not include deaths resulting from the illegal use of pharmaceuticals.

Harvard researcher and associate professor of medicine Dr. David Bates told the Los Angeles Times in 2001, pharmaceutical use …translate[s] to 36 million adverse drug events per year. This calculation was based on more research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1995 (Bates et al.). This revealed that over a sixth month period, 12% of a population of adult hospital admissions had either a confirmed adverse pharmaceutical event or a potentially adverse pharmaceutical event.

As a comparison, the 2007 annual report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers reported a grand total of three deaths from natural remedies. This included herbs, homeopathy, essential oils, minerals, vitamins and other supplements. When seen in light of research from the National Institutes of Health National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine—revealing that 38% of adults and 12% of children in the U.S. use some form of alternative medicine—the safety of traditional and alternative strategies is significant when compared with pharmaceutical therapies.

Meanwhile, we find our environment poisoned by the toxins thrown into the streams, rivers, oceans, soils, air and our bodies by pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities that produce these chemicals.

The evidence is in: Nature is smarter than modern medicine.

Today, doctors who graduate from western medicine schools—unless otherwise educated on the topic—are unaware of the intelligence and efficacy of natural medicine simply because nature is virtually ignored in modern medicine.

Another basic relationship is wholly neglected by modern medicine, one that traditional medicine has known for centuries: That what we put into the body relates directly to its subsequent health. This is a basic observation that any automobile mechanic knows: Poor fuel equals poor engine performance.

Furthermore, as herbs are increasingly showing efficacy, some western medical doctors are attempting to apply their pharmacology training to herbs—replacing medication prescriptions for herbal and supplement prescriptions. However, herbs do not work like pharmaceuticals. As we will illustrate here, herbs have hundreds of active and synergistic constituents, while most medications have one. Therefore, the typical single-constituent pharmacology approach used in pharmaceutical medicine cannot accurately be applied to herbal therapies.

A person trained in traditional herbal medicine will thus not simply recommend an herb or herbal combination. The herbal recommendation will be accompanied by a variety of lifestyle and dietary changes that support the action of the herbal formulation.

This also means the natural medicine expert must be trained in most of the same areas a medical doctor is trained in. They must know anatomy, physiology, pathology and biochemistry just as a medical doctor must know. However, the natural medicine expert must also know how the body works within nature, and how nature works within the body: They need to know how the body responds to the seasons. How it responds to various foods and diets. How it responds to certain activities. How it responds to herbs, foods, supplements, massage, acupuncture, sunlight and any other natural therapy.

This knowledge is not simply derived from textbooks. This knowledge is derived from mentorship, application and the humble reception of wisdom that has passed through generations of healing traditions over thousands of years: Traditions based on science, together with a respect for nature.

Instead of mindlessly rejecting our ancestors as witch doctors and primitives, we must accept that they learned how to work with nature. They knew how to utilize the plants and the elements of nature to heal—without polluting the streams, rivers, oceans and air. They knew how to become healthy while preserving the very elements that provide future survival.

In other words, they utilized a deeper wisdom. They knew that nature would not only take care of them: They also knew that nature would take care of their children and their children’s children for hundreds of generations forward. They knew that their humble respect of nature would guarantee that their grandchildren would have clean water and pure food. They were right.

This wisdom, unfortunately, must have missed a few generations. Something happened during the previous few generations. Some kind of pride and self-confidence has gripped our society—and we lost our respect for nature: We forgot the wisdom that had been handed down for so many generations.

Not only have we forgotten our respect for nature: We’ve also forgotten that herbal medicine has had thousands of years of clinical application among billions of people. This means also that herbal medicine comes with a history of safety. In fact, it is only when we ignore the traditions of our ancestors’ medicines that we get into trouble with herbs. Only when we mix herbs with medications or do not prepare the herbs according to the traditions developed by scientifically focused herbal formulators do we find toxicity among some of these herbs.

Traditional medicines also understood individuality, not only among plants, but among people. Each of us is unique, and we each will respond uniquely. Therefore, it is as important today as it has been for traditional medicines that we consult with a health professional to guide us.

This book is meant to assist both the health professional and the asthma sufferer in this process. The information laid out in this book will help provide the necessary information that both parties need to make critical decisions regarding the welfare of the asthma sufferer. It will also invoke a worthy combination of ah-ha moments together with practical solutions.

The information provided is based on a wealth of modern and traditional medical reference. Over a thousand scientific references have gone into this book: Hundreds of clinical studies have been reviewed, and hundreds more research papers, numerous materia medica texts and herbal medicine texts have been drawn from to provide the information given in this text.

In other words, this text is providing more than information from traditional reference: It is providing scientific substantiation for these methods using modern western research protocols.

The protocols and conclusions provided in this book will meet the expectations of even the most skeptical conventional medicine advocate: Much of this research comes from medical schools, prestigious universities, hospitals and/or government agencies around the world. It comes from professors of medicine, physicians and dedicated medical researchers, using double-blind, placebo-controlled and randomized research protocols.

Asthma is not to be taken lightly. It is serious business. Therefore, this text offers serious research and clinical evidence for the positions taken in its conclusions. It also offers serious traditions and serious herbal solutions. Furthermore, it provides clarity on the underlying mechanisms at play within the asthmatic physiology. Hopefully, this combination will shed light on a subject that has been virtually shrouded in much of the literature.

Finally, this text is not professing to be a complete pathology reference on the subject of asthma. It does not pretend to exhaustingly describe all of the diagnostic and symptomatic elements of asthma. Nor does it discuss the application of pharmaceuticals in asthma—except perhaps to illustrate asthma mechanisms or constituents here and there.

In other words, the author does not seek to rehash the same information that can be readily found in medical pathology or pharmacology texts. Rather, the focus of this book is the discovery of the real underlying causes of asthma, which in turn prove—together with direct clinical application and research of traditional medicines—that nature indeed can provide us with a pathway out of the current epidemic of asthmatic hypersensitivity griping modern society.

Chapter One: Asthma Reality Check

Toby

Toby stands with a healthy six-foot frame, and reddish locks flowing over a wide freckled forehead. At 34 years old, he is a family man with three children and a wife—married just out of high school.

One would never guess Toby is asthmatic.

Toby and his family live in a Chicago suburb drenched in well-groomed green lawns buttoned down with round bushes and draping trees. His house reaches up with triangle archways, pointing to the often-grey skies that adorn the lakeside neighborhood wrapped in parks and walking paths.

Toby is a sales executive with a large manufacturing business. His days are spent languishing in meetings and luncheons, demonstrating his company’s attributes and product lines. After a stressful day’s work, Toby is found home with his family, sitting down to the quintessential western dinner, after which he helps wash dishes.

This is often followed by homework-helping and game-playing with the kids. Toby has a seven-year old boy, a four-year-old girl, and a two-year-old boy. They are all healthy, with the exception of his two-year old, who is allergic to milk, and his six-year old, who seems to be allergic to dust and who-knows-what else. She seems to be sensitive in general, evidenced by her oft-red nose and watery eyes. His seven-year old was also allergic to milk when he was younger, but within the last two years, his milk allergy seems to have disappeared.

After the children are off to bed, Toby and his wife relax during the late evenings with a glass of wine and some late night television before heading to bed. As they brush, they discuss the day’s events, peppered with occasional arguments about things that would at any other time seem trivial.

This is a good evening for Toby. On a not-so-good evening, Toby is enveloped in wheezing, coughing—and during some episodes, gasping for air. As his asthma episode worsens, Toby can be found weak and struggling to breathe, as his family helplessly looks on. He typically retreats to the privacy of their second bedroom, where he can take his medication while attempting to compose himself.

Occasionally this also happens at work. A flurry of dust or a windblown afternoon might set him off. His co-workers know to let him retreat to his office on these occasions. Days that he tours the plant with prospective clients are often the worse for asthmatic episodes. A whiff of exhaust can set him off as he passes by the boiler room or steps into the fabrication areas.

Toby has had asthma since the age of nine years old. With little warning a few days after spraying herbicides with his Dad, Toby had his first asthmatic episode. Walking to class after lunch and talking with his friends, a scratch inside his throat transformed to wheezing as the day went on. He barely even noticed this until later in the day, as he sat in his classroom seat coughing and gasping for air. It was as if someone was strangling him from the inside of his chest. In between gasps he waved his hands, bringing his teacher, and eventually the school nurse, to his side. They took him out of his chair and brought him to the school infirmary. From there he was shuttled to a doctor’s office. While still gripped by the symptoms, the doctor diagnosed his condition as asthma.

Toby’s early childhood years were active, though he found himself bullied by some of the older kids on his block. There was little violence, just the constant barrage of name calling. Toby was otherwise healthy, but suffered from allergies to milk until he was six. After the age of six, his milk allergies subsided. Toby was thankful for this, and he relished milk and cereal, ice cream—and anything other sweets for that matter.

His mom and dad were relieved that his milk allergy subsided. That is, until his asthma episodes developed. After his diagnosis, they took Toby to a specialist. The spectacled, overweight and mustached doctor with piercing brown eyes put Toby on a cocktail of medications aimed to control his asthmatic episodes.

These helped a little in the beginning, until Toby began to rebel against the disciplined rigor of having to pop pills every day, multiple times a day with nebulizers in between. Sometimes, outside the purvey of his parents, he went days without taking his medications. This would eventually catch up to him, as his folks would count pills and scold his lapses.

Over the years, Toby came to grips with his meds, and while he still had occasional asthma attacks, they seemed less frequent. But even on the episode-free days, Toby struggles with headaches, nausea and frequent diarrhea. When he reports this to his doctor, the doctor says it’s likely the medication side effects, but there is little he can do. Toby has to choose between less frequent asthmatic episodes and the sometimes splitting headaches, nausea and diarrhea. It is a tough call.

Now, as Toby has watched both his boys and daughter become allergic, he now fears they will also develop asthma. He feels guilty for this, thinking their allergies and possible future asthma will be the result of his bad genes.

This worry is also good fuel for some of the arguments that penetrate the night’s air, as Toby and his wife prepare to bed. That is, on the good nights.

Martha

Martha, or Marty as her friends call her, is an active 18-year old heading off to college in a few months. She has many friends and belongs to several clubs at school. She also has maintained straight A’s through high school and has what looks like a bright future.

Few would guess Martha was asthmatic.

Only a year ago, Martha saw herself as a free spirit who liked music and computers, and couldn’t wait to start college at her state university and get away from mom and dad. Her participation in several clubs and events, along with her grades and test scores rewarded her with entrance in the first school she applied to.

Martha is the oldest of two—her brother Tommy is 12 and has been her biggest pest. Until recently, she wanted to leave home so much. She felt trapped by curfews, bedtimes, lights out and computers off. While she never partied much, she has always had a liking for anything fried—especially French fries. Her and her friends still like to sneak off to the local fast food restaurant to gorge on fries and shakes.

Despite her free spirit self-image, Martha is quite stressed. She is anxious about her hair, her grades, her friends, her facebook account, and most recently, her asthmatic hypersensitivity. Before being accepted to university, she was worried she wouldn’t be accepted into the school she wanted. Before she applied for college, she was afraid she wouldn’t get good scores on her SAT exams. In fact, Martha has been living in an almost constant state of stress. From one issue to the next, she is usually fretting about something.

This fear of success has plagued Martha for many years. As a child she fretted about not being liked, and worried that people would hate her. She also had stomach pains and heartburn now and again—especially after big meals. She has yet to tell anyone about these.

Her parents are perplexed about Martha’s worrisome nature. Why was she so worried all the time? They thought she was a happy child. And their home life seemed relaxed enough. They didn’t pressure her about grades or college. It must be related to peer pressure, they figured, because she would constantly compare herself to the other kids at school. It also must be related to her being overweight, they figured.

Martha is 70 pounds over the top normal range for her height.

Some might conclude that Martha grew up privileged. She had little want for opportunity, clothes and other possessions. She had all the trappings. She got to eat pretty much what she wanted to eat. Her parents’ stately house in the prominent area of the city stood as testament to a family with means. She was dropped off at a private school until her last two years of high school—when she insisted she attend a local public school.

Martha’s asthma began rather suddenly during the springtime just one year ago. She went on a spring-break vacation with a friend’s family to a lakeside cottage surrounded by fields planted with alfalfa. With the surge of this new pollen exposure, Martha found herself sniffling, sneezing and drying her watering eyes. After three days, things took a turn for the worse. Her chest tightened and Martha began wheezing. She went to bed with a fever, and woke up in the middle of the night feeling as if she were being choked. She was gasping for air. She felt like someone had put a pillow over her face.

As she struggled for air, Martha got up to clear her irritated throat and clogged sinuses. In seconds, she was on the ground, having lost her balance. With a thud she went down, awaking everyone in the cottage.

She awoke in the hospital. Her fever had subsided, and her clogged sinuses were feeling a little clearer. The hospital staff had administered epinephrine, cortisone and antibiotics.

After a hospital bedside meal of white bread toast, eggs and sugary juice punch, Martha sat up to greet the local doctor, who sees to emergency cases in rotation with two other doctors from the small lakeside town. The doctor listened to her heart, percussed her chest and upper back, and pulled off his stethoscope with a humph.

I’m afraid you have asthma, little lady, he said gruffly. It looks like you’ve had an asthma attack.

Martha was incredulous. She couldn’t believe it. Are you sure? she whined.

A person can contract asthma at any point, young lady. You must have had a bad streak of luck at the cottage, and caught more than your quota of fish and pollen, he said, smiling at himself.

In talking further with the doctor, it seemed that he had diagnosed a number of cases of allergic asthma over the years. He also indicated that he thought they were curiously becoming more frequent and more critical in recent years, however. This didn’t make much sense to Martha.

From that day forward, wheezing episodes came every week or two. In the beginning, the episodes were fairly mild, consisting mostly of watery eyes, sneezing, wheezing and some coughing. Over time, the episodes got worse. The wheezing turned into gasping for air as she experienced the first time. Sometimes, as her difficulty breathing worsened, Martha would also become anxious. These anxious moments turned into full-blown anxiety attacks.

The idea of suffocating was not very comforting to Martha.

In the beginning, her medication use was casual and self-interrupted. She didn’t see the reason for them if she was feeling better. As her episodes got worse, her doctor prescribed more medications and pressed her for consistency in dosing. While these did not stop the attacks, they did seem to make them a little easier to handle. She is also now taking anti-anxiety medications.

Unfortunately, there are also side effects to the medications. Martha’s sleep is erratic. Occasionally she will sleep through the night, but most nights are spent restlessly tossing and turning. She also has occasional headaches and eyestrain, which her doctor tells her is probably a side effect of her medications.

Martha is a little more concerned about going off to college than she was last year. Last year, before her asthma episodes and panic attacks emerged, she was anxious to get away from home and have the college experience. Now she is afraid of not having her parents around to coach her through her medications and comfort her during her episodes. She is concerned about her doctor being further away. She is afraid that someone might not realize how sensitive she is to certain triggers, and won’t recognize the inherent danger when she is having one of her episodes.

Who Gets Asthma?

As of 2009, 17.5 million people in the U.S. were estimated to have an asthmatic condition. This translates to 7.7% of the population. Some have since upgraded this estimate to closer to 20 million.

Researchers from the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center studied asthma incidence among 8,020 adults over the age of twenty, using the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. They calculated that 3.6% of adult Americans have current asthma, 14.7% suffer from wheezing, and 4.6% suffer from nighttime cough.

Significantly more children have asthma than do adults, however. As of 2009, 7.1 million U.S. children have asthma, equating to nearly 10% of children in the U.S.

Asthmatic hypersensitivity levels are even higher when symptomology is considered. Researchers from Athens’ Penteli Children’s Hospital studied 700 city children, including 323 boys and 377 girls aged between 10 and 12 years old. They found that 25% of the boys and 19% of the girls had wheezed in the past; and 9% of the boys and 5.8% of the girls had current wheezing. In all, asthma symptoms were prevalent in 28% of the boys and 20% of the girls.

Asthma incidence tends to vary with community and geographical location. Research from the National Center for Chronic Disease and Prevention in Atlanta reported that asthma prevalence among adults in their sampled communities ranged from 7.5% to 19%—depending upon the community.

Researchers from Portugal’s University of Porto analyzed 20,977 women and 18,663 men form a cross-section of Portugal’s population. They found that those with an income of more than 815 Euros per month had nearly half the rates of asthma than those with an income of 314 Euros or less. They also found no significant difference between asthma rates and education. Money was the matter.

Using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, researchers from the University of Texas School of Public Health found that dramatically more women than men have asthma. Asthma rates were 8.8% for women and 5.8% for men. This trend is also apparent when considering a history of asthma: 13.7% of women and 10.4% for men were diagnosed with asthma at some point in their lives.

This research also uncovered that current asthma was significantly less prevalent among Americans born in Mexico, with women at 1.9% and men at 0.9%. Mexican-Americans born in the U.S. had significantly higher rates, with 8.7% for women and 5.2% for men.

Furthermore, University of New Mexico researchers found that children of U.S.-born Hispanic mothers were nearly twice as likely to have asthmatic symptoms as children from Mexico-born mothers in this study of 269 mother-infant pairs.

This same trend was also seen in the findings of researchers from the New York Children’s Health Project and Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, New York. Using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the researchers found that children born in the U.S. have higher asthma rates than foreign-born children. They found that close to 15% of U.S.-born children have asthmatic symptoms, compared to only 7.3% of foreign-born children.

Furthermore, this study found that African-American children had the highest rates of asthma, followed by Hispanic-American children. Caucasian children had the lowest rates. The research revealed that the children of lower-educated parents had the highest risk of an asthmatic condition. In other words, those children born of parents with lower levels of education had higher rates of asthma than children born of higher-educated parents.

Early infection exposure appears to be higher among asthmatic children. Researchers from the City University of New York found that early infection exposure can increase the risk of asthma and other inflammatory diseases. Using the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, they found that children from families with lower incomes, lower education among parents, and of non-white races had increased risk of a variety of chronic infections, including Helicobacter pylori, cytomegalovirus, herpes simplex virus-1, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, and others. Infections with these appear to predispose higher rates of asthma among children over six years of age, according to the research.

As for incidence among different ethnicities, University of California researchers found that asthma occurs in greater numbers among Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Cubans born in the United States than among other ethnicities. Those descending from Mexican and South American parents have lower rates that these, according to the research.

It is also known that allergies are much less prevalent among less developed countries. Furthermore, there is a significant difference between those living in cities and those living in the countryside: Those living in urban areas have significantly higher rates of allergic sensitivities.

Furthermore, multiple studies have shown that those who live in rural areas have lower rates of asthma.

Asthma rates in China, for example, have been far lower than Western countries. In research from the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood Steering Committee, asthma and allergy incidence among adolescent children was found to be over 20% in many Western countries, while only about 2% in China. The highest levels of asthma around the world are found in Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and some countries in South America. The lowest rates of asthma are found in Indonesia, Greece, China, India, Ethiopia, Taiwan and Uzbekistan.

As some of these countries become westernized, however, their asthma rates are rising. In China, for example, asthma rates have grown dramatically, especially among China’s major cities. In a recent study of 24,290 children from Beijing, Chongqing, and Guangzhou, asthma occurrence among children was 3%, 7.5%, and 2%, respectively—significantly higher than rural rates.

Furthermore, among developed countries, those living in warmer, sunnier areas, with other factors controlled, have fewer asthma and allergies. In a large-scale international study, 17,280 adults between the ages of 20 and 44 from different countries were studied by researchers from Australia’s Monash Medical School. Natives of Northern European countries such as Scandinavia or Germany had higher rates compared with Southern European countries such as Spain and Italy.

This geographical relationship has also been seen among urgent care facilities within the U.S. For reasons we will discuss in more depth later, those living in Southern states have lower incidence of allergic sensitivities and far fewer hospital room visits for allergy and asthma episodes.

French researchers found that a child’s first allergic sensitivity becomes evident at about two years old. This depends, of course, on the type of allergy. It is also recognized that atopic dermatitis allergies and food sensitivities occur more frequently among infants and younger children. Hay fever, or allergic rhinitis and allergic asthma tend to develop later, especially among children who were otherwise allergic during infancy.

Worldwide Asthma Rates are Rising

The research indicates that asthma rates have been increasing around the world, along with the United States. As of 1980, about five million Americans had been diagnosed with asthma. As mentioned, currently asthma rates are close to 20 million Americans. This means that asthma levels have about quadrupled over the past thirty years: About a 400% rise in asthma incidence. And this is not due to population growth: The U.S. population has risen by only 30% or so over that period.

In terms of per-capita increases among children, U.S. National Center for Health Statistics data indicates that asthma occurrence among children rose an average of 4.6% each year between 1980 and 1996. Furthermore, childhood asthma rates grew by 3.5% in total over the next twelve years. In other words, growth rates might have slowed, but asthma incidence is still growing.

As of 2005, 6.5 million children had asthma, equating to 8.9% of children. Then in 2007, research from the National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, estimated found that 6.7 million U.S. children suffer from asthma. This equated to 9.1% of all U.S. children. In other words, in the two years between 2007 and 2009, there were 200,000 more children suffering from asthma.

Furthermore, recent reports have estimated that about 7.1 million children currently have asthma, equating to about 9.6% of all U.S. children.

In the research from the National Center for Chronic Disease and Prevention cited earlier, asthma prevalence in 2006 among adults in their sampled communities ranged from 6.5% to 19%. In 2007, as mentioned, this range was found to be from 7.5% to 19% among the communities studied—an increase of 1% on the minimum side.

Meanwhile, rates in other developed or developing countries around the world have also continued to climb, with some at higher growth rates. This is supported by a number of international surveys.

For example, medical researchers from Sweden’s Uppsala University studied 8,150 to 12,560 adolescents, adults and elderly adults between 1990 and 2003. They found that asthma incidence increased through the 13-year period among all ages. Asthma rose from 11% in 1990 to 25% in 2003 among the adolescents.

Scientists from Poland’s Military Institute of Health Sciences found that among people living in urban areas in Poland, IgE sensitivities to atopic allergens increased 52% in the 16 years from 1986 to 2002. This means that on the average, allergen sensitization increased at a rate of about 3.25% per year.

Australian researchers studied the prevalence of critical reactions including anaphylaxis and atopic asthma that resulted in hospitalization among developed countries. They analyzed data for three periods—1993-1994, 2004-2005 and 1997-2004. During the three periods, hospital admissions for angioedema (swelling of mucous membranes and submucosal tissues) increased an average of 3% per year. Allergic urticaria (skin rashes) increased an average of 5.7% per year. Hospitalizations for the sometimes-fatal anaphylaxis allergic response increased a whopping 8.8% per year in total. Increases in reactionary hospitalization were highest among children under five years old.

The Condition Called Asthma

The medical term for asthma is airway hyperresponsiveness or bronchial hyperresponsiveness—also abbreviated as AHR or BHR. Here the airways, which include the lungs and bronchi, become inflamed and irritated, producing airway hypersensitivity. This causes the airway passages that bring air in and out of our lungs to narrow. In minor responses, this produces what some describe as wheezing. In more severe episodes, an extreme shortness of breath becomes evident.

The narrowing of the breathing passages is predicated by bronchoconstriction. Bronchoconstriction is characterized by a contraction of the smooth muscles surrounding the breathing passages. This contraction is driven by acetylcholine receptors that lie on the smooth muscle fibers. Once these receptors are switched on, the muscles contract and clamp down on the airways. This narrows the breathing passages.

At the same time, mucous builds up in the airways. This mucous becomes thicker and gummier. This inhibits the draining of the mucous membranes in the airways, further reducing the airway passages.

In severe cases, this inflammatory narrowing of the breathing passages can bring about an extended period of chest tightness and gasping for air while struggling to breathe. This is often referred to as a bronchospasm. This can become a life-threatening situation, which is often treated with epinephrine and other anti-inflammatory medications.

As we’ll discuss in more detail later, this inflammatory narrowing is a reactionary event, which can come from environmental exposures, something consumed, exercise or even stress. The frequency and severity of these bronchospasms depends largely on the underlying condition, as we’ll describe shortly.

In general, there are two broad categories of asthma. These are related to their pattern of response to triggers. The first is called intrinsic and the other is called extrinsic asthma. However, these categories are rather superficial, as we’ll describe further.

Atopic Extrinsic Asthma

Extrinsic asthma is also called atopic because it is typically triggered by environmental or allergen factors, which provoke a type of immune system response.

Atopy is used frequently among doctors and scientists to describe food allergy responses. What does atopy mean? Atopy is derived from the Greek word meaning unusual or not ordinary. Atopic is used to describe the condition where a person is reacting to a substance in a manner unrelated to the form of contact with the substance.

For example, a normal response to breathing in some dust is to sneeze. This response is normal for removing dust. But if suddenly, rashes break out all over the body, even on the legs, the reaction becomes more than a normal physiological response: It becomes atopic.

An atopic response is also an extraordinary response with symptom severity outside the realm of typical responses for such an exposure. In the case of atopic asthma, the immune system is triggered by antigens that engage antibodies such as immunoglobulin E (IgE). This engagement with IgE produces what is called a mediated response.

This type of IgE response is outside the ordinary IgA response, which expels foreigners before they penetrated the body’s tissue systems. The allergen interacts with IgE, and the body produces inflammatory mediators such as histamine, prostaglandins and leukotrienes. These stimulate the inflammatory response, resulting in a constriction of airways and a thickened mucous membrane.

Nearly half of asthmatic responses are considered atopic. For example, researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases used the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to determine the incidence of IgE-related asthma. Using this huge database of thousands of asthmatics, they found that IgE-related atopy was present in 42.5% of current asthmatics.

Atopy can also cause a variety of other hypersensitivity symptoms, including hives, rashes, itchiness and sinus congestion. Atopic reactions are typically seen among the epithelial layers and mucosal membranes. These are expressed as asthma, allergic rhinitis, conjunctiva rhinitis, and even eosinophilic esophagitis.

Again, these responses are all outside of what would be expected in a healthy immune system. For example, dust or smog might cause sneezing or mild coughing in a normal immune system, while a hypersensitive response can invoke asthma symptoms.

As we’ll investigate further, extrinsic asthma is typically triggered by pollen, dust, molds, animal dander, cigarette smoke, smog, food and airborne chemicals. We’ll discuss these triggers in more detail later.

Intrinsic, Non-Atopic Asthma

Intrinsic asthma is also called non-atopic because the defect in the airways and immune response already exists. In other words, there is an internal defect that triggers the asthma response, rather than an external allergen that stimulates a mediated release of inflammatory factors. In the intrinsic model, the airways, nervous system and bronchial muscles are in one way or another functionally damaged, and this weakened physiology facilitates the hypersensitive response.

Note that this intrinsic response can still be triggered by environmental elements—such as dust, smog and chemicals—that also can produce allergens and stimulate the atopic response. Exercise, infections and emotional issues can also trigger the intrinsic asthmatic episode. A pure intrinsic response, however, does not usually accompany the degranulation of mast cells related to IgE.

In other words, the intrinsic asthmatic response works much like a reflex. Reflexive actions by the respiratory system are usually categorized as sympathetic. This is because the body’s nervous system and adrenal system is responding to a perceived threat with a fight-or-fight type of response. The sympathetic nervous system responds out of proportion to the threat because the physiologies of the airways, immune system and nerves have become dysfunctional.

We might compare this with how small dogs tend to bark the loudest. Why do they need to bark so loud? Because they need to compensate for their lack of size. In the same way, a part of the body that is under duress will respond more urgently because it is more vulnerable.

Mixed Asthma Response

Of course, there may be dysfunctional physiology and an atopic, allergenic response at the same time. This is referred to as a mixed asthma because the physiology of the airways, nervous system and adrenal system are damaged and hyperresponsive, while the immune system is sensitized to allergens such as pollens, dander, dust mites and so on.

This mixed response, in fact, can produce more severe and lasting asthmatic responses. The body must recover from both the sympathetic response and the immunologic response. One physiology may recover first, leaving the others to recover later. As leukotrienes might be cleared, the airway smooth muscles may not be ready to relax, for example.

Regardless of the nature of the asthmatic hyperresponse, the basic mechanics of airway hyper-responsiveness indicate an inflammatory response caused by derangements of the immune system, nervous system, adrenal system and/or respiratory system. Something stimulates the hypersensitive asthmatic response because the body feels that it is threatened. When this something comes into contact with the body’s cells, the body responds with hypersensitivity.

Once the immune system considers any trigger a threat, it stimulates a process to remove or escape that situation. Normally this process is invisible and automatic. We might clear our throat, yawn, sneeze or blink a few times, and that’s that. However, if the immune system is damaged, weakened, imbalanced and otherwise overactive, the same trigger can provoke a response out of proportion with what would ordinarily be required to remove such a trigger from the body. Furthermore, once the element or condition is seen as a threat, the immune system will respond similarly every time it comes into contact with that substance or situation—until something changes.

The healthy body is a smart ecosystem. Ordinarily the body can handle challenges without hyperreactivity. A healthy body will respond to such a challenge by either correctional purging or adaptation. A hyperreactivity response simply means that the body has no other reasonable means for responding to the challenge. It cannot adequately purge or correct the challenge; and it cannot adapt to the challenge.

A healthy immune system is designed to do either and sometimes both. This is why we cough and our eyes water when exposed to smoke. It is also why we sneeze when we accidentally inhale pepper or dust.

This means that something else is going wrong. The immune system, nerves, adrenals and airways are responding abnormally. And because there is something wrong, the body responds inappropriately.

Let’s discuss the various conditions that have been called asthma:

Exercise-Induced Asthma

Exercise-induced asthma (often abbreviated as EIB—exercise-induced bronchospasm), is the narrowing of the breathing airways following or during exercise. EIB is usually a temporary event that may last from a half-hour to an hour or two. EIB often occurs during or following vigorous exercise.

A more common and mild form of EIB is exercise-induced wheeze, or EIW. While some may question why wheezing after exercise is of any concern (is it not normal to wheeze after vigorous exercise?), the amount of wheeze seen in EIW is considered more than typical.

In fact, we know that asthma is quite common among athletes. For example, University of Iowa researchers found that over 16% of Olympic athletes were either diagnosed with asthma, had used an asthma drug, or both. More than one out of ten Olympic athletes was taking an asthmatic medication during the 1996 Olympic Games.

Occupational Asthma

Occupational asthma is bronchial hypersensitivity related to environmental exposures found in workplaces. Industries or workplaces that have reported frequent bronchial hyperresponsiveness include chemical manufacturing, oil refining, natural gas production, metal fabrication, hospitals, automobile manufacturing, pharmaceutical manufacturing, fur and clothing manufacturers, and plastic producers. These exposures can produce asthma among both workers and their families. This is especially the case with pregnant mothers.

Environmental Asthma

This type of airway hyperresponsiveness is quite similar to occupational asthma, in that environmental exposures are also direct triggers. However, this type of BHR includes exposure to cigarette smoke, household dust and mold, animal dander, furniture and carpet materials, homebuilding materials and others. Even an automobile’s interior can contain asthma triggers such as formaldehyde.

In reality, most allergies that are not of the first two categories are environmentally triggered. Sensitizations to environmental exposures such as these are found in a majority of asthma and allergy sufferers. The physiological mechanisms of asthma are unique. But there is no escaping that these environmental toxins relate to asthma.

This case is bolstered by the fact that many asthmatics had allergies earlier in life. In multiple studies as we’ll show, many asthmatic children had food or dust mite allergies as infants. We’ll connect these issues as we explore the underlying causes for asthma.

Refractory Asthma

A persistent and severe case of asthma that cannot be adequately ‘controlled’ or maintained by typical medications is called refractory. The term ‘refractory’ means something that cannot be controlled by the typical control measures. In this case, the ‘control’ measures used as a baseline are pharmaceutical medications.

Many refractory asthma cases are found to be related to stubborn sinus infections and subsequent sinusitis diagnoses. Subsequently and for reasons we will explore further, this type of asthma will often respond to antibiotics, but not steroids.

Allergic Asthma

This category—the epitome of atopic asthma—has redundancies with other asthma types, but is nevertheless identified specifically by researchers. For many asthma sufferers, allergies to pollens, dust, foods and other allergens are intimately involved in their asthma episodes. For others, there may be a co-existing condition of asthma and allergies. Yes, an allergic trigger may also be independent of a co-existent asthma disorder.

Food Allergy Asthma

University of Colorado medical researchers determined from the 2005-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data that about 2.5% of the U.S. population has a clinical food allergy. Furthermore, they determined that food allergy significantly increases the risk of contracting asthma. They called food allergies, an under-recognized risk factor for problematic asthma.

Food allergy asthma is actually a subclass of allergic asthma. For many asthma sufferers, food allergies appear to be the basis for their asthma. For others, it appears they are independent conditions. We’ll focus on this later.

Researchers and Poland’s University of Łódź studied 304 asthma patients between the age of five and eighteen years old. Of the 304 asthmatics, 9.8% also had food allergies, as established by double-blind placebo-controlled food challenge (the gold standard).

Researchers from the University of Delhi studied IgE levels in 216 asthmatic patients with an average age of 32 years old. Of the 216, they found that 172 had elevated serum IgEs—indicating allergic asthma. Of the total, 11% of the asthma patients were sensitized to rice, 10% were sensitized to black gram, 10% had IgEs specific to lentils while 9.2% were sensitive to citrus (some had multiple sensitivities).

French researchers found that asthma was preceded by food allergies in 8.5% of asthma cases. Preceding allergens outside of foods included feathers and latex. Each of these has also been shown to cross-react with foods should a person become airway-sensitized to the protein allergen.

Researchers from Poland’s Medical University of Lodz studied 54 children with food allergies and 62 without food allergies. Using methacholine provocation to test forced expiratory volume, they found that the food allergic children had greater levels of bronchial hyperreactivity. Among the non-asthmatic children in the study, bronchial hyperreactivity was evident in 47% of the children with food allergies and only 17% of those without food allergies. Furthermore, bronchial hyperreactivity was found in 74% of those children who suffered from moderate anaphylactic reactions, and bronchial hyperreactivity existed among all of the children who had severe anaphylactic reactions.

Asthma is Not a Disease

Despite all the diagnoses; all the references in the various pathology texts, medical science books and websites; asthma is not a disease.

Rather, asthma is a symptom. It is a reaction that indicates a deeper, underlying condition. Due to this underlying condition, the airways become hypersensitive to particular triggers. Once irritated by a trigger, the airways and their smooth muscles respond by narrowing. They also become filled with thickened mucous, which further constricts the available airway space.

As the airways narrow, breathing is restricted and coughing often results. And assuming the underlying condition continues, the airways likely remain continually inflamed and irritated between episodes—ready to react to the slightest trigger. This is called airway hyperreactivity or asthmatic hypersensitivity.

Asthma may also be considered a category of diseases. Such a condition category might be comparable to saying a person has a liver disorder or a blood disorder. In both of these instances, there are host of specific diseases that the person with such a category condition might have, including diseases that may originate elsewhere in the body.

As laid out before, some types of asthma are considered atopic, which means the asthmatic response is triggered by an allergic response that may have little to do with the lungs—just as a skin rash may be caused by eating a toxin, medication or allergen. In the case of an atopic skin response, the allergen may not have even had any contact with the skin. The person may have eaten or inhaled the allergen, yet the skin responded.

Asthma is distinguishable from COPD and pneumonia, which specifically relate to infections or damage to the lungs. However, asthmatic responses have been seen following these diseases—along with many others that may occur elsewhere in the body.

We could compare the asthmatic condition to sport categorization: There are many different sports, and then there are categories of sports. There is also relative specificity between categories. For example, there are ball-handling sports, extreme sports, winter sports and water sports. Some categories also can exist within other categories. For example, skiing is a winter sport that can also be an extreme sport. Surfing is a water sport and also an extreme sport.

In other words, asthma can be described as a category of disease conditions, or a type of symptomatic response. It is not a single disease condition in itself. For this reason, a person may have any number of disease conditions while they suffer asthmatic symptoms at the same time.

Difficulties in Asthma Diagnosis

Asthma is difficult to diagnose. This is not only because there are various forms of asthma and the fact that asthma is a symptom rather than a disease: It is also because asthma can easily be confused with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD, emphysema and other respiratory disorders.

This reality was illustrated in a study from Canada’s Ottawa Hospital. The researchers found, in investigating 496 adults diagnosed with asthma by a doctor, that 150 cases were not symptomatic of asthma. Using the newest diagnostic tools, they also found that obese individuals—who typically have reduced lung function—were more likely to be misdiagnosed as asthmatics.

Further illustrating the difficulty of diagnosing something that is not really a disease, researchers from Britain’s National Heart and Lung Institute and the Imperial College and Royal Brompton Hospital studied 50 patients with chronic cough to determine triggers. They found that asthma was related to coughing in 13 patients; postnasal drip/rhinitis was related to coughing in seven patients; gastroesophageal reflux was related to the coughing in five patients; five had bronchiectasis (a widening of airways with damage, often congenital); and 20 relationships were unidentified.

Researchers from the Spain’s University Hospital of Guadalajara studied 9,752 respiratory patients. Of these, 42.9% were diagnosed with asthma and 42.8% were diagnosed with COPD. However, only 14% of the patients diagnosed with COPD had all the criteria of COPD as defined by the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease. This means that some 86% of the COPD group had another pathology. Furthermore, many of the symptoms among the COPD-diagnosed group were considered asthma symptoms. In other words, many of those diagnosed with COPD may have actually had a condition relating to asthma.

This trend is not limited to foreign doctors. A number of asthma experts in the U.S. have also reported that those with asthmatic symptomology are being diagnosed as COPD, emphysema or a mild allergy.

While the percentages are not precise and unidentified cases were greater in these studies—undoubtedly due to differences in testing and diagnostic methods, there are commonalities among the studies. The most relevant relates to the lack of certainty in asthma diagnosing, and the variation in diagnoses for chronic coughing.

So what are the (theoretical) primary signs and symptoms of asthma?

Primary Signs and Symptoms

The main signs and symptoms of asthma include periodic or chronic wheezing, coughing, breathing rapidly, gasping for air difficulty breathing and/or sucking in the skin over the chest or neck area.

Even with chronic wheezing, asthma is typically considered a response condition. Therefore, it is usually triggered by an environmental condition or exposure of some sort. Once the trigger takes place, the symptoms may continue and appear chronic. But typically, asthmatic symptoms subside or lesson, until they are triggered again.

The most frequent sign of an airway hyperreactivity (asthmatic) response is wheezing. A wheeze is a whistling sound that can usually be felt as a vibration from the back, between the shoulder blades. A wheeze often vibrates with a higher-pitched or lower-pitched whistle that can be heard distinctively through a stethoscope. A milder version is heard only on the expiration. If wheezing is heard during both expiration and inspiration, the asthmatic episode is more severe.

Coughing is a more obvious symptom, and often signals an asthmatic episode or attack. Persistent coughing is the quintessential hypersensitivity response. Normally, coughs are triggered by a build-up of mucous in the airway. In the case of asthma, the cough is triggered by the narrowing of the passages.

Respiratory asthmatic symptoms will include lung congestion, breathing passage congestion, sinus congestion and in general, difficulty breathing. This may seem like asthma, a cold, hay fever or even being choked or gagged. The latter occurs when the windpipe becomes swollen and the breathing passageways narrow. This can become life-threatening.

Coughing can be measured by the number of coughs within a minute. The faster the rate of coughing, the more severe the asthma usually is.

A persistent cough can sometimes be asthma, but not always. Researchers from The Netherlands’ University Medical Center Utrecht studied 353 random participants over the age of 50 who suffered from persistent cough. Of the 353, only 11% had other symptoms of asthma and were diagnosed with asthma.

Breathing faster is also typical of an asthmatic episode because breathing rate is also governed by the amount of airway space: The less the airway space, the faster the breathing. The normal rate of breathing is about 25-40 breaths per minute for an infant, 20-30 breaths per minute for a young child, 18-25 breaths per minute for a child through adolescence, and somewhere between 10 and 20 breaths per minute for an adult.

As we’ll discuss further, breathing slows during sleep, so