Parenting, Asthma & Drugs

From Mike:
I believe there is a strong possibility that when our youth is raised with such a strong preponderance of the idea of drugs for health, this can re-enforce the curiosity of drugs for recreation and whatever the youthful curious mind deems interesting or appropriate.

"Understanding the protective effects of sighing may give us therapeutic options for asthmatics in the future," says Alkis Togias, M.D., an associate professor of clinical immunology and principal investigator of the study, which appears in the August issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology.

For years, scientists have used the drug methacholine to study asthma because it narrows airways and causes wheezing in asthmatics, but not in healthy people. Then, in 1995, Hopkins researchers discovered that if people with healthy lung function took only shallow breaths before inhaling the drug, their lungs behaved more like those belonging to asthmatics, and breathing was difficult.

With further study, the researchers found that deep breaths help open airways after they close. To investigate whether deep breathing might bestow other protective effects, Togias and his colleagues exposed nine healthy volunteers and eight asthmatics to methacholine. At first, the volunteers were asked not to inhale deeply for 20 minutes before taking the drug. Then, the investigators gauged airway openness by having the volunteers breathe into a tube and measuring the speed and quantity of air exhaled. The test was then repeated, but this time the volunteers were instructed to take five deep breaths before inhaling the drug.

While breathing deeply did not affect airway openness in asthmatics, it reduced the adverse effects of methacholine in individuals by 85 percent.

The scientists speculate that deep breaths may stretch lung tissue, which then causes the release of a protective chemical that keeps airways open. "If we could figure out what that substance was, perhaps we could provide it to asthmatics via a drug," says Togias.

From Mike:
Seventeen people do not make a satisfactory study, but I believe they are on the right track with the lung expansion idea.

Firstly, to me, sighing is not so protective as it is a signal that there is shallow breathing occurring.

Using methacholine does not necessarily create the type of constriction that occurs while one is breathing out of balance. Constriction is not the key. Unbalanced breathing and excessive sympathetic nervous system enervation is the key. Along with whatever allergy or toxin is causing or adding to the problem. And I do not mean CO2.

What is bizarre to me (and typical of the western medical model) is that they have a major non-drug-related insight right in front of them, and they want to use it to create a drug. When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

I believe that any one negative aspect of nutrition, environment, internal cleansing, and unbalanced breathing can cause or worsen upper chest breathing and asthma but when one handles the nutrition, environment, internal cleansing and expands tidal volume through rebalancing the breathing along with correcting the posture so that the breath retains its foundation in the parasympathetic low abdomen, sides and back, one will essentially eliminate asthma. Sound complicated? It really isn't when you know what to do, and when.

Meanwhile the drug makers may have yet another way to peddle their wares and mess with our bodies.

Another thing I deduced from this study pointed out that when deep breathing does not help, it may be a sign of an underlying asthmatic condition or tendency towards some kind of breathing problem. Click here for more http://www.breathing.com/articles/deeper.htm.

From Mike:
Another asthma article and program with the best of intentions but potentially dangerous implications that "drugs are better."

Asthma Bus Drives Home a Vital Lesson in Health

"Asthma is really the #1 health problem in schools," said Sal Mangione, a pulmonologist and asthma researcher at Thomas Jefferson University who oversaw the transformation of the bus into a mobile education center that will begin making the rounds to all the public middle schools in Philadelphia."

Mangione said that while the incidence of asthma is on the rise, the good news is that it's "fully treatable. It's not curable, but it's treatable."

From Mike:
Not curable? That is total bunk. Asthma IS curable. Treatable implies to me the use of prescription drugs. Curable to me means NO prescription drugs.