When the airway passages reacts

Asthma is a chronic disease of the lung. Asthma is an occasional constriction of the airways caused by inflammation  lined with excessive mucus (“Asthma Facts”, 1996-2007).

It is a controllable chronic lung disease but it is not a curable one. The swelling causes the airways to be very susceptible to different environmental irritants.

When the airway passages reacts to the environmental irritants, the muscles surrounding it contracts and causes the airways to get narrow and more swollen and produce more mucus making the air difficult to move in and out of the lung tissues that causes difficulty in breathing and coughing. (“Asthma Facts”, 1996-2007).

Asthma can affect people of all ages and races but they are often seen and diagnose in children. Children with family history of asthma have high risk of having this lung disease than those who haven’t had history in their family (“Asthma”, 2006).

The prevalence is more often on young boys than young girls but this changes in adult life because woman are more affected than man (“Asthma”, 2006). There are also some risk factors that may contribute in the progress of this lung disease. The risk factors are the following (“Asthma”, 1998): (1) Exposure to second hand smoke such as cigarette smoking.

Pregnant woman should avoid smoking because of the content of the cigarette or tobacco can be passed on to the fetus. Infants or children of different ages should be protected by their mother from second hand smoke because study shows that children that are lessen are not merely expose to second hand smoke are more protected or has a lower possibility of developing an asthma (Huggins, 2007). Study also shows that nowadays, children ages 18 below have asthma (Huggins, 2007).

Protection from the second hand smoke is needed because those substances or cigarette content can have harmful effects on the fetus or children especially in the development of their lungs; (2) Having parents with asthma is also a big factor. This lung disease can also be hereditary.

Parents must be taking care of themselves or should take the necessary medications to lessen or alleviate the possibility of the development of asthma of their children; (3) Low birth weight can also contribute to the development of this disease.