NEW DELHI (PTI): The causes of Asthma may be genetic but the disease develops and persists as a result of changes in the environment and lifestyles. Asthma is therefore predicted to increase worldwide with growing urbanization and industrialization.
At a present teleconference on inter health, the world health organization’s program for healthy living, participants said asthma attacks were triggered by allergens. Allergens are substances in the home or the work place to which victims are allergic, such as dust, household pets, particularly cats, feathers, smells, tobacco smoke, pollutants. Stress too can cause an attack, they said. In the workplace alone, employees are exposed to some 200 substances that have been shown to be linked to asthma. “With the introduction of new materials into industry, the number of exposures will grow,” according to experts who met for the conference in Beijing.” Asthma is an affliction of the air passages of the lung that makes breathing difficult, leaving sufferers coughing and gasping for air. In severe cases, air passages may shut off altogether. When that occurs, asthmatics inhale anti-in-flammatory drugs to open passages. Thus, though Asthma may be deadly, it is treatable.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 23, 1993
