Three Ways Probiotics Can Help Asthma Sufferers

Asthma is a potentially serious illness that can be debilitating to your health and lifestyle. If you’re a chronic sufferer, you’re probably on permanent preventative medication and always on the lookout for irritants (eg, mould, mould, certain foods or plants, cigarette or wood smoke, to name a few). You’re also living with the constant threat of a life-threatening attack.
Even if you have mild symptoms or occasional attacks, you still have to be alert – ensuring you have rapid and easy access to medication (because attacks can be completely unexpected) and avoiding known triggers.
Asthma is an inflammation of the airways, the small tubes that carry air in and out of the lungs. The muscles in the airways tighten and the linings swell and produce mucus. These changes narrow the airways, resulting in coughing, wheezing, a constricted feeling in the chest and shortness of breath. Triggers vary from person to person, but may also include cold weather or sudden changes in temperature, pets, chemical irritants and outdoor pollution.
One in 12 citizens (that’s 25 million) in the US are asthmatic and at least fifty percent of them had an attack in the past year. Many of these attacks could have been avoided with the correct management plan, which should include the use of probiotic supplements. Here are three reasons why:
Asthma is an allergic reaction of the airways to certain irritants and so is directly associated withyour immune system. Experts say that 60 to 70% of your immune system is found in the gut, where trillions of organisms called probiotics assist you to digest your food and deter harmful bacteria from getting through your intestinal wall.
The more harmful bacteria (including triggers for your symptoms) that get through the intestinal wall and get into the blood stream, the more likely the immune system is going to cause an allergic response via histamine production to repel the attackers. This causes the symptoms of asthma. If you have strong probiotic colonies in your system gained as a result of supplementation, these will assist to stop these organisms from getting into the blood stream, resulting in less attacks.
Secondly, as you now have less toxins in your system, the probiotics can focus all their efforts on getting rid of the attackers when they attack – again with the result of less attacks. It’s vital to taken note that due to many reasons, probiotics may not be able to stop some toxins from entering the blood stream, which means you will still have symptoms, but reduced in regularity and severity.
And thirdly, many types of medication, including steroids which are commonly prescribed for asthma, strip the body of much of its useful bacteria, resulting in a bacterial imbalance which can leave you susceptible to further illness later. To obtain the optimum benefit from your medication it’s essential to take probiotic supplements as well, to restore the levels of good bacteria andassist you recover more quickly.
Many asthmatics report that their symptoms have decreased after a period of time using probiotic supplements. It’s important to remember that probiotic supplements are not a cure – they must be taken in addition to your normal medication and not instead of it, and made an essential part of your asthma management plan. Take them as specified by the manufacturer or by your doctor or health professional.