A recent article by Dr. Mark Hymand MD appeared in The
Chorn’s Provision. I thought it might be of interest.
Breathe Easy — Addressing the Root Causes of Asthma
The question this week
is, “what causes asthma and what can I do about it?
How do I get rid of
these terrible symptoms that I have?”
Asthma
is a big problem. It affects 8.4 percent of the population or over 25 million
Americans (including many children), and it’s increasing every day in
America.
Why? For a number of
reasons: increasing environmental toxins, increasing pollution,
increases in food sensitivities and gut problems, food additives and dyes,
increasing use of antibiotics and medications, and increasing
consumption of Frankenfoods with altered
proteins and other strange ingredients. All these things can trigger asthma.
So, what can we do about
it? Functional Medicine is medicine by cause not by
symptom. We focus on finding the root cause, while most
conventional treatment focuses on just suppressing the symptoms.
I saw
a patient in the other day. She was 42 years old. She had actually died twice
from respiratory symptoms due to her allergies. We call it anaphylaxis,
which is a severe allergy reaction.
She had to be coded with
paddles to revive her. She was taking 42 different sprays, pills, and potions
every day, which had been prescribed by top doctors at Harvard. She
had seen the lung doctor, the immunologist, and the allergist. Everybody was
trying to fix her and no one could, because they weren’t asking the right
questions. They were trying to suppress the inflammation rather than trying to
address the cause of the inflammation, a very different perspective. That’s the
perspective we take in Functional Medicine: getting to the root cause.
When
this patient came to see me, I ran some tests in order to understand
exactly what was irritating her immune system. I looked for the common causes
and asked a few simple questions. Is it food allergies? Is it environmental
allergens? Is it mold? Is there something wrong with the bacteria and microbes
in her gut? Is it a toxin? What about stress or a poor diet? All of these
things are potential triggers for asthma and all chronic disease.
In her
case, I found out that she had very high antibodies to gluten, an indication
that she had celiac disease, which turned out to be the root cause of her
asthma. This was completely missed by the top medical school and university in
the country, because they don’t think that food might have something to do
with disease. It’s just not something they are taught to look for in medical
school.
One
Harvard doctor said to me, “if food was medicine, I would have learned about it
in medical school”.
So, what did I do
for her? I simply removed the things that were causing the problem. I got rid
of the gluten, cleaned up her gut, and got rid of the bad bugs. Then, I put ingood
bugs and nutrients, like fish oil, vitamin C, and zinc. A few simple things helped restore and balance her
body, and within six weeks, she was off every medication, she had no symptoms,
no allergies, no hives, and no asthma.
We have a very simple
rule in Functional Medicine: if you’re standing on a tack,
it takes a lot of aspirin to make it feel better. Get
the tack out, and you don’t need the aspirin. That’s really the focus of
Functional Medicine—fixing the cause.
More
Causes of Asthma
Why do we have an epidemic
of asthma that affects as many people as heart disease or diabetes?
One
example is that we have increased our C-section rates. More than half of
all new babies are now being born this way. When babies aren’t delivered
through the birth canal, they don’t get the bacteria from the mother’s vagina
in their intestinal tract. This prevents them from developing normal, healthy
gut flora, which is important to a healthy immune system. They also might not
be breastfed, which, again, impedes their immune development. They might be fed
foods like gluten and dairy before they are one year old (like all the Cheerios
fed to babies who are teething), which can trigger an immune reaction in an
immature immune system. They might be given a lot of antibiotics for sore
throats or ear infections, which also create disturbances in the gut flora. All
these things, over time, will trigger more allergies, more inflammation, and
more problems.
One
study found that if women with a family history of allergies were given
acidophilus during pregnancy, their babies were 50% less likely to develop
asthma, allergies, runny nose, and eczema—very simple intervention, very low
risk, very powerful.
The
goal here is to get rid of the things that are causing the problem and then
help the body to reset. What we do is very simple.
How To
Cure Your Asthma
We get
rid of the bad stuff, starting with the foods that might be a problem—gluten and
dairy are the most common cause of asthma. And then, we put
in things that the body needs to heal, and we clean up the
gut. There may be yeast issues; there may be bad bugs that are growing in
there. We clean those out, and then we put in good things like healthy
bacteria and probiotics.
If you
have asthma, here are some simple things you can try to get to the root of the
problem and re-balance and cool off your immune system:
·
Do an elimination Diet to
get rid of the most common food allergens. Gluten and dairy are the biggest
culprits!
·
Look for other causes (food additives, pesticides,
chemicals, pollution in your environment).
·
Check for mold in your home or
work.
·
Consider taking antifungal herbs
·
Take probiotics. I use a
high quality product. Stay away from the cheap brands at the big box stores-
You get what you pay for.
·
Take fish oil, which is
anti-inflammatory. Again, stay away from the cheap brands at the big box
stores- You get what you pay for.
·
·
Take extra zinc..
There
are the types of things we do in Functional Medicine to help reset the
body. But much of this can be done through SELF-HEALTH, the process of taking
care of your own wellbeing.
Take out the bad stuff, put in
the good stuff, and your body knows what to do.
Wishing
you health and happiness,
Mark Hyman, MD
Mark Hyman, MD
