Air pollution, dust responsible of increase in asthmatic patients

HYDERABAD, Oct 29 (APP): The increasing air pollution and dust put
the number of allergic asthmatic patients high in urban populace of
Hyderabad and there is the need of formation of effective strategy in controlling air pollution.
Eminent Pulmonologist and Head of the Department of Pulmonology,
Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences Jamshoro Dr Rashid
Ahmed Khan expressed his concern over increasing allergic asthmatic
disease in Hyderabad in an interview with APP on Wednesday.
He said that smoke from increasing number of new and unfit vehicles as
well dust were the main reasons for increasing allergic asthmatic among
the residents of urban localities.
Dr Rashid Ahmed said the cigarette smoke, animal dander, mold spores,
house dust, feather pillows, some foods, or any other sensitive substance, infections, emotional stress, fatigue, endocrine and climate changes are also the main sources of erupting the disease among the people, he added.
He said that asthma is an allergic disorder that is characterized by
spasm of the muscles in the walls of the small air passages to the lungs, which results in the shortness of breath and wheezing.
About symptoms, he informed that an attack may begin gradually;
resulting in increasing respiratory distress and it could also begin dramatically with the onset of severe multiple symptoms such as tightness
in the chest, difficulties in inhaling and exhaling and coughing. Feelings of suffocation and difficulty in speaking could also occur, he added.
Dr Rashid said that asthma sufferers rarely die from an asthma attack,
but the feeling of suffocation as their airways begin to close often makes them fear that they have already gasped their last breath. He said that asthma is the disorder of the respiratory system in which the passages that enable air to pass into and out of the lungs periodically narrow, causing coughing, wheezing, and shortness of breath.
This narrowing is typically temporary and reversible, but in severe
attacks, asthma may result in death and most commonly refers to bronchial asthma, an inflammation of the airways, but the term is also used to refer to cardiac asthma, which develops when fluid builds up in the lungs as a complication of heart failure and this article focuses on bronchial asthma, Rashid Ahmed added.
He said that every cell in the human body requires oxygen to function
and the lungs make that oxygen available and every breath take by the people, air travels to the lungs through a series of tubes and airways.
Dr Khan informed that after passing through the mouth and throat, air
moves through the larynx, commonly known as the voice box and then through
the trachea or windpipe.
Asthma also occurs among those people who do not have allergies and in
these persons, chemical irritants trigger an inflammatory response that is initiated in a different way than in allergen-triggered asthma he said adding that for example, some people are sensitive to certain common chemical irritants, such as perfume, hairspray, cosmetics, and household cleaners.