Asthma is a condition whose cause isn’t fully understood. There’s a list as long as your arm full of high risk factors but no-one can tell you just what the defining one is – what actually causes asthma? Considering how common asthma is in the world today and just how dangerous it can be, it’s astounding that we don’t understand it better. Of course we do have some fantastic medications and treatments available which allow a patient to live with and manage their condition as necessary. Regardless of how good these methods of treatments appear to be, people still die from asthma related complications every year. 80% of those deaths occur in third world countries where they simply don’t have the money and/or knowledge to prescribe the necessary medications.
In Bangalore the rate of asthma has been steadily rising since the late 70’s. The condition itself has always been much more common in children than in adults. A good deal of kids grow out of the disease as they reach adulthood, though not all. In a recent census it was shown that the current rate of asthma in children is around 25%. So, one quarter of the whole population of children in Bangalore currently suffer from the disease, this is up from 9% in 1979.
Doctors and researchers are blaming the staggering increase in air pollution levels, differing dietary habits and the presence of air conditioned environments for this boom in the levels of asthma. All have been shown to be potent exacerbating factors for asthma, if not sparking the condition in the first place. Junk-food and its relative lack of vitamins and minerals has been partially blamed for the boom in asthma levels worldwide. Certainly the correlation between the disease and the growth of fast food chains is striking.
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