Asthma Epidemic: No one has the answers.

[Guest guest]

November 28, 2006 Second Opinion An Epidemic No One Understands By DENISE GRADY http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/28/health/28seco.html Our sons were born in 1984 and 1987, and we encountered an awful lot of children their ages who had the same illnesses, far more

than we remembered from our own generation. Statistics suggest that something strange was occurring in those years. From 1980 to 2003, the prevalence of asthma in children rose to 5.8 percent from 3.6 percent, an increase of about 60 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Other estimates from the disease centers show an even bigger increase in the asthmas rates for younger children: a 160 percent jump in those younger than 5 from 1980 to 1994. But changes in data collection starting in 1997 make it hard to compare the figures before and after that year. More recently, the rates seem to have leveled off in the United States and in other Western

countries. In any case, about 20 million people in the United States have asthma today, including at least 6 million children, and 5,000 people a year die from it. Children in the inner cities seem to be especially hard hit, with exposure to cockroaches and diesel fumes suspected as the culprits. But the cause is not known for sure. Worldwide, the disease has also increased. From 1985 to 2001, the prevalence rose 100 percent. About 300 million people have asthma, 255,000 die from it, and deaths could increase by 20 percent over the next 10 years, according to the World Health Organization. The problem is especially severe in developing countries, which are least able to provide the long-term

intensive treatment that asthma requires. Some of the apparent increases may not be real, but may have occurred because doctors got better at making the diagnosis. But increased reporting seems unlikely to account for all the new cases. Theories come and go, and when you come right down to it, no one really knows why some people develop asthma and others don’t. In “The Asthma Epidemic,” an article published last week in The New England Journal of Medicine, doctors tried to sort out various theories about the causes of asthma and explain why rates have risen.

But there are no clear-cut answers. Like other chronic diseases, asthma is probably caused by multiple genes and environmental exposures, and it can have quite different causes in different people. About half the cases are thought to stem from allergies and the rest from other problems that can irritate and inflame the airways, causing them to close. Genetic changes in the population cannot explain the increasing rates, though, because such changes occur too slowly to account for the rapid increases in asthma, the authors said, suggesting that environmental factors are more likely candidates. But what has changed enough in the environment to explain spiking asthma rates? The authors of the article, from University Children’s Hospital in Munich, review many study findings. They report that one clear risk factor is secondhand tobacco smoke. Exposure to it does increase asthma risk

in infants and small children. But how would that explain the increases, when over all, parents today smoke less than previous generations? People frequently blame air pollution for causing asthma, but its role is not entirely clear. Pollution does makes asthma worse in people who already have the disease, but it’s not known whether pollution also makes asthma develop in the first place. And in any case, air pollution in the United States has decreased in the last few decades. Living in a place with high vehicle exhaust may make asthma worse, but the evidence is “relatively weak,” the researchers report. Dust mites, microscopic insects that live in bedding and furniture, were long blamed for causing asthma to develop in infants and small children and have led to a booming industry of mattress covers, air filters and guilt-ridden parents tethered to dust mops and vacuum cleaners. But recent studies have

questioned the connection. Once children have asthma, though, the mites and their droppings may make the symptoms worse. Cat dander has become a complete puzzle, with some studies finding that exposure early in life leads to asthma, and others saying it protects against asthma. At this point, nobody knows which study to believe, but most experts agree that when people already have asthma, being around cats can make it worse. Under some of the theories, I should have had the world’s worst asthma. Clearly, I had allergic tendencies, and the experts would have shuddered at my environment. I grew up in New York in a small apartment with parents who were heavy smokers, on a busy street with trucks rumbling by and a bus stop in front of the door. Buildings all around us burned coal. At times, we had a dog, a cat, parakeets and, briefly, a duck. It’s amazing that the pets survived the smoke. My mother was a decent

housekeeper, but she wouldn’t have won any prizes. I never wheezed. Go figure. Obesity and asthma have also been linked in some studies, but the link, if it exists, is not understood. Researchers say it is simply not a matter of asthmatic children growing fat because they cannot exercise. The weight gain can be first. Nutrition is another mystery. Studies of fruits, vegetables, cereals, fatty acids, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants have been inconclusive, and little is known about the

effects from what pregnant women eat. Experiments in which pregnant women avoided cow’s milk and eggs in hopes of preventing asthma in their infants did not work, and breast-feeding doesn’t prevent the disease, either. One theory that has received attention recently is the “hygiene hypothesis,” the idea that children today are raised in homes that are too clean and that asthma is somehow caused by the lack of exposure to infections and bits of microbes early in life. Under this theory, germs are supposed to help the immune system develop normally, and without them the system may overreact to other substances in the environment, producing allergies and asthma. There is some evidence to support the idea. Studies find that children raised on farms are less prone than others to asthma, maybe because they are exposed to plenty of microbes in barns and stables. But the connection is still not fully understood, and

some viral infections clearly make asthma worse. A related idea is that the increased use of antibiotics in recent decades contributes to asthma by changing the type of the bacteria that live in the gut. But that has not been proved. Some researchers have suggested that acetaminophen, used to treat pain and fever, may be linked to asthma. Its use increased in the 1980s, after pediatricians declared aspirin unsafe for children. But that theory has not been proved, either. Ultimately, this new list of the usual suspects still doesn’t solve the mystery. It seems that we may almost have a double

standard as far as medical theories are concerned. As long as man does something, it's science. When nature does something, it's quackery. - Dr G E Poesnecker, (Nature Cure 2000).

Access over 1 million songs - Music Unlimited.

[Guest guest]

I have some answers for you. Mycoplasma. They'll look at

everything but ignore the root cause of the issue. Mycoplasma

pneumonia is the cause of much of the asthma. Kill the mycoplasma

and the asthma goes away. Pretty simple stuff. Using Rife

frequency technology will work quite well on asthma symptoms. Go to

your local pulmonologist or allergist and tell them you want the

Rife cure for your childs asthma or your fathers COPD. Good luck.

Minocycline will also work though. Try convincing your allergist to

put you on a long term course of Minocycline for your asthma. It's

like trying to pull spots off a Dalmation.

 

Where were all the asthma afflicted children when in colonial times

they burned all the hardwood forests in North America to make potash

to ship to England. The air must have been pretty polluted for a

good hundred years or so. I'm not buying the pollution theory.

 

The hygene hypothesis is a bunch of medical weasel talk also. Kids

living on farms don't get asthma. Especially the ones living on the

Amish farms that never get vacinated. They don't get autism either.

 

The American Pediatric Association vaccination schedule is so

intense that it is probably related to asthma in children. All

those jabs, all that adjuvant is driving the immune responses to

being TH2 dominant which means artificially driven antibody

production and sensitivity to anything environmental that a child is

exposed to while being immunized. You could probably predict what

pollen a person is allergic to by when they got their jabs.

 

The TH2 dominant immune response operates at the expense of the TH1

or cell mediated response which is needed to kill off mycoplasma and

virus. And these little bugs will also drive the TH2 response by

manipulating the immune system's genetic machinery, weakening the

TH1 response and ensuring their survival. Some virus can also

activate NFKB which in turn causes certain lymphokines to be

produced, which in turn drives TH2 dominated immune responses. This

will make asthma worse especially when there is also chronic

mycoplasma. What you have are atopic people with eczema, allergies

and asthma, better known as high value patients.

 

Pertusis, the P in the DPT is also used in the Guinea pig in allergy

research. You see, guinea pigs immunized with pertusis develop

allergies and are in fact used as an animal model in allergy

research. You immunize them with pertusis and they become atopic.

The Guinea pig immune system is very similar to the human immune

system. Lovely to be informed isn't it.

 

The next time I hear, " we don't know the cause of asthma but it

could be the air's too polluted, it's genetic or the enviroment is

too sterile, I'm going to puke up a lung.

 

 

, Jagannath

Chatterjee <jagchat01 wrote:

 

> November 28, 2006

> Second Opinion

> An Epidemic No One Understands By DENISE GRADY

> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/28/health/28seco.html

> Our sons were born in 1984 and 1987, and we encountered an

awful lot of children their ages who had the same illnesses, far

more than we remembered from our own generation.

> Statistics suggest that something strange was occurring in those

years. From 1980 to 2003, the prevalence of asthma in children rose

to 5.8 percent from 3.6 percent, an increase of about 60 percent,

according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

>

> Other estimates from the disease centers show an even bigger

increase in the asthmas rates for younger children: a 160 percent

jump in those younger than 5 from 1980 to 1994. But changes in data

collection starting in 1997 make it hard to compare the figures

before and after that year. More recently, the rates seem to have

leveled off in the United States and in other Western countries. In

any case, about 20 million people in the United States have asthma

today, including at least 6 million children, and 5,000 people a

year die from it.

>

> Children in the inner cities seem to be especially hard hit,

with exposure to cockroaches and diesel fumes suspected as the

culprits. But the cause is not known for sure.

>

> Worldwide, the disease has also increased. From 1985 to 2001,

the prevalence rose 100 percent. About 300 million people have

asthma, 255,000 die from it, and deaths could increase by 20 percent

over the next 10 years, according to the World Health Organization.

The problem is especially severe in developing countries, which are

least able to provide the long-term intensive treatment that asthma

requires.

>

> Some of the apparent increases may not be real, but may have

occurred because doctors got better at making the diagnosis. But

increased reporting seems unlikely to account for all the new cases.

Theories come and go, and when you come right down to it, no one

really knows why some people develop asthma and others don't.

>

> In " The Asthma Epidemic, " an article published last week in The

New England Journal of Medicine, doctors tried to sort out various

theories about the causes of asthma and explain why rates have

risen. But there are no clear-cut answers.

>

> Like other chronic diseases, asthma is probably caused by

multiple genes and environmental exposures, and it can have quite

different causes in different people. About half the cases are

thought to stem from allergies and the rest from other problems that

can irritate and inflame the airways, causing them to close.

>

> Genetic changes in the population cannot explain the increasing

rates, though, because such changes occur too slowly to account for

the rapid increases in asthma, the authors said, suggesting that

environmental factors are more likely candidates. But what has

changed enough in the environment to explain spiking asthma rates?

>

> The authors of the article, from University Children's Hospital

in Munich, review many study findings. They report that one clear

risk factor is secondhand tobacco smoke. Exposure to it does

increase asthma risk in infants and small children. But how would

that explain the increases, when over all, parents today smoke less

than previous generations?

>

> People frequently blame air pollution for causing asthma, but

its role is not entirely clear. Pollution does makes asthma worse in

people who already have the disease, but it's not known whether

pollution also makes asthma develop in the first place. And in any

case, air pollution in the United States has decreased in the last

few decades. Living in a place with high vehicle exhaust may make

asthma worse, but the evidence is " relatively weak, " the researchers

report.

>

> Dust mites, microscopic insects that live in bedding and

furniture, were long blamed for causing asthma to develop in infants

and small children and have led to a booming industry of mattress

covers, air filters and guilt-ridden parents tethered to dust mops

and vacuum cleaners. But recent studies have questioned the

connection. Once children have asthma, though, the mites and their

droppings may make the symptoms worse.

>

> Cat dander has become a complete puzzle, with some studies

finding that exposure early in life leads to asthma, and others

saying it protects against asthma. At this point, nobody knows which

study to believe, but most experts agree that when people already

have asthma, being around cats can make it worse.

>

> Under some of the theories, I should have had the world's worst

asthma. Clearly, I had allergic tendencies, and the experts would

have shuddered at my environment. I grew up in New York in a small

apartment with parents who were heavy smokers, on a busy street with

trucks rumbling by and a bus stop in front of the door. Buildings

all around us burned coal. At times, we had a dog, a cat, parakeets

and, briefly, a duck. It's amazing that the pets survived the smoke.

My mother was a decent housekeeper, but she wouldn't have won any

prizes. I never wheezed. Go figure.

>

> Obesity and asthma have also been linked in some studies, but

the link, if it exists, is not understood. Researchers say it is

simply not a matter of asthmatic children growing fat because they

cannot exercise. The weight gain can be first.

>

> Nutrition is another mystery. Studies of fruits, vegetables,

cereals, fatty acids, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants have been

inconclusive, and little is known about the effects from what

pregnant women eat. Experiments in which pregnant women avoided

cow's milk and eggs in hopes of preventing asthma in their infants

did not work, and breast-feeding doesn't prevent the disease, either.

>

> One theory that has received attention recently is the " hygiene

hypothesis, " the idea that children today are raised in homes that

are too clean and that asthma is somehow caused by the lack of

exposure to infections and bits of microbes early in life. Under

this theory, germs are supposed to help the immune system develop

normally, and without them the system may overreact to other

substances in the environment, producing allergies and asthma.

>

> There is some evidence to support the idea. Studies find that

children raised on farms are less prone than others to asthma, maybe

because they are exposed to plenty of microbes in barns and stables.

But the connection is still not fully understood, and some viral

infections clearly make asthma worse.

>

> A related idea is that the increased use of antibiotics in

recent decades contributes to asthma by changing the type of the

bacteria that live in the gut. But that has not been proved. Some

researchers have suggested that acetaminophen, used to treat pain

and fever, may be linked to asthma. Its use increased in the 1980s,

after pediatricians declared aspirin unsafe for children. But that

theory has not been proved, either.

>

> Ultimately, this new list of the usual suspects still doesn't

solve the mystery.

>

>

>

>

> It seems that we may almost have a double standard as far as

medical theories are concerned. As long as man does something, it's

science. When nature does something, it's quackery.

> - Dr G E Poesnecker, (Nature Cure 2000).

>

>

>

> Access over 1 million songs - Music Unlimited.

>

>

[Guest guest]

.. . in response to tbrownski:

Your response sounds very knowledgable and reasonable. But for the medically

ignorant (me!) what are mycoplasma - it sounds like yeasts or fungals. If I

were diagnosed with it, how would AMA treat it? How would alternative medicines

threat it?

And will you please explain the Rife frequency technology?

Two series of acuppuncture, some parasite cleanses and sound (tuning forks)

therapy with zapper work have diminished most of my asthma sympthoms (have not

used an inhaler or nebulaizer, or steroids in a year. But I occasionally have

some wheezing and shortness of breathe, which I can usually clear up energy

work.

 

Norma