What's the best way to prevent asthma, and by extension, prevent deaths from asthma?

Well it was reported in the Telegraph this week that doctors, by way of Dr Dinesh Saralaya, who runs a specialist clinic in Bradford, are saying that 1,000 Asthma deaths a year could be prevented if patients, even those with only mild asthma, would regularly use "their ‘preventer’ inhaler - which contains a low-dose steroid" rather than relying "solely on the ‘reliever’ inhaler when undergoing an attack. " The evidence for this claim appears to be "a poll of 333 people with severe asthma, conducted by Ipsos MORI and funded by drugs firm Novartis". Personally, I would never give much credence to research funded by companies with a financial interest in the results, and in particular to research funded by drug companies hoping to increase the sales and use of their drugs and consequently their company profits. - Would you?

But I have even stronger reasons to regard this report with scepticism. The newspaper report is illustrated with a photo of a child using an inhaler, so I'll consider in particular child sufferers from asthma. - Now I am not a doctor and I have no medical qualifications whatsoever, so if you are wanting a medical opinion you would be better looking elsewhere than on my blog. But like you I do have a brain and I can read. My personal opinion is that the best way to prevent asthma, and to prevent deaths from asthma, is to protect children from a high intake of salt/sodium. My opinion is based on the following research evidence:

In this Telegraph article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2137775/Too-much-television-is-an-asthma-risk.html, about research in Rome, Italy, led by Dr Giuseppe Corbo, despite its misleading title, the crucial finding is, "The study of 20,000 six and seven-year-olds, published in the medical journal Epidemiology, confirmed a strong link with asthma and obesity, but found that salt was the biggest risk. Those with the highest intake of salt were two and a half times more likely to develop asthma." (My emphasis.) I'll bet your brain comes to the same conclusion as mine does, doesn't it? - Protecting children from a high salt diet is the simplest, safest and most effective way to reduce their risk of developing asthma and also from any necessity to take steroid meds as treatment for asthma. (I'm not a big fan of steroid meds, especially if they can be avoided.)

This article, too, supports the wisdom of a low salt intake for children. "According to a new study published by the American Dietetic Association, high-salt foods and snacks are linked to lung changes that trigger asthma symptoms.," and that researchers in Greece found, using questionnaires, "Kids who ate high-salt foods more than three times a week saw their risk of asthma symptoms go up almost five times."

Another drug-free and very important measure to protect children from developing asthma is to avoid dosing children with paracetamol/acetaminophen (aka Tylenol and Calpol). A wealth of statistical data on this webpage http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/health/evidence-mounts-linking-acetaminophen-and-asthma.html?_r=1 suggests a link between acetaminophen and childhood asthma. Also have a read of this article from the Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/3233550/Delaying-baby-vaccine-could-cut-asthma.html for another simple measure that "could halve the likelihood of a child developing asthma by the age of seven."

As well as reducing the suffering of many thousands, even of millions, of people, these simple measures could also save about £1 billion a year - nearly one per cent of the NHS entire NHS budget - that is spent on asthma. - What it would not do, of course, is boost the profits of the drug company, Novartis...

Health Campaigning Charities - creatures of the Drug Industry?

The Pharmaceutical Industry has a malign influence on the big health campaigning charities. I have visited this subject before: see http://wildeaboutobesity.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/for-new-perspective-on-conflicts-of.html This corruption has been brought to my attention again because some journalists and other concerned individuals/bodies, e.g. here, have been drawing attention recently to the way big charities have been subverted away from their original charitable aims and objectives. They have become instead bloated, overpaid quangos, largely funded from taxation, serving political aims, campaigning for political objectives and deceiving ordinary citizens into donating their time, money and effort to organisations they would not want to fund if they knew the truth about them.

 

My own particular concern is the big health campaigning charities, which I regard as a front for promoting pharmaceutical drugs and thereby increasing the profits of Big Pharma. If drug promotion benefited people's health, I would not be against it. But that is not the case.

 

When the aim is to get more and more people taking prescription drugs, rather than the aim being to prevent, ameliorate or cure the disease, we are clearly in a dystopian world of lies and corruption, of blighted lives and unnecessary suffering. Although these health charities give a modicum of good advice, it is outweighed by misinformation, drug promotion and failure to draw attention to simple, really useful dietary measures. Here are some examples:

 

A crucial dietary measure that would reduce the incidence and severity of childhood asthma is to avoid feeding children salty meals and snacks. - See this article, where you will read, "According to a new study published in the American Dietetic Association, high-salt foods and snacks are linked to lung changes that trigger asthma symptoms.," and that researchers in Greece found, using questionnaires, "Kids who ate high-salt foods more than three times a week saw their risk of asthma symptoms go up almost five times." 

 

We read in this Telegraph report of research in Rome, Italy, led by Dr Giuseppe Corbo. "The study of 20,000 six and seven-year-olds, published in the medical journal Epidemiology, confirmed a strong link with asthma and obesity, but found that salt was the biggest risk. Those with the highest intake were two and a half times more likely to develop asthma." (my emphasis) See also Salt/Sodium in Foods. But AsthmaUK don't tell people about the massive difference salt reduction makes to the incidence and severity of childhood asthma, surely a greater benefit than any drug treatment and with no harmful side-effects or habituation to medications. - My personal opinion is that everyone's health and pocket would benefit if AsthmaUK were to close down.

 

Similarly, Diabetes UK (i.e. www.diabetes.org.uk) gives precisely the wrong dietary advice about diabetes. See this article by Dr Briffa. And this one.

 

And what shall I say about the British Heart Foundation (BHF)? The British Heart Foundation is a charity that states that it aims to prevent people dying from heart diseases. I don't believe that the advice it gives is very likely to succeed in that aim. - To me, the most important preventative measure, and indeed the most important remedial measure with regard to heart problems, is avoiding salt and salty food. This reduces the risk of stroke, high blood pressure, heart attack and heart failure, reduces obesity and reduces breathlessness. It is also helpful to cut down on carbohydrates and eat plenty of healthy fat. (Check out LCHF - Low Carb/High Fat - on your favourite search engine.) - Yet what does the BHF and its spokespeople plug over and over again? - Why statins, of course. It is a drug-oriented website. Its aim does not seem to me to be to prevent people dying from heart diseases. Its aim seems to be to get people to take drugs, especially statins. Statins are controversial, vastly over-prescribed drugs with many adverse side-effects.

 

Did you know that many of the most-prescribed drugs (tricyclic anti-depressants, steroids, antipsychotics, etc.) - by causing sensitivity to salt - can and do actually cause obesity, heart problems and type 2 diabetes, among many other serious degenerative health conditions? And that salt intake is also linked to stomach cancer? And that Paracetamol/Calpol/Tylenol/Acetaminophen (a painkiller) is especially harmful to children? And that there is massive overprescribing of powerful painkillers by UK GPs, leading to addiction and to death by overdose among their unfortunate patients?

 

It seems clear to me that the health campaigning charities should be strongly advising people to reduce salt and sugar intake and cut down or cut out processed food products, since these measures are of enormous benefit to health, particularly with regard to degenerative diseases. And rather than encouraging people to take pharmaceutical drugs that have so many harmful side-effects, often far more harmful than the illness they are being prescribed for, they should be on the side of avoiding drugs unless they are absolutely necessary.

Two simple suggestions that could help to stem the worldwide increase in childhood asthma

A crucial dietary measure that would reduce the incidence and severity of childhood asthma is to avoid feeding children salty meals and snacks. - See this article, where you will read, "According to a new study published in the American Dietetic Association, high-salt foods and snacks are linked to lung changes that trigger asthma symptoms.," and that researchers in Greece found, using questionnaires, "Kids who ate high-salt foods more than three times a week saw their risk of asthma symptoms go up almost five times." 

 

We read in this Telegraph report of research in Rome, Italy, led by Dr Giuseppe Corbo. "The study of 20,000 six and seven-year-olds, published in the medical journal Epidemiology, confirmed a strong link with asthma and obesity, but found that salt was the biggest risk. Those with the highest intake were two and a half times more likely to develop asthma." (my emphasis) See also Salt/Sodium in Foods.

 

Another important precaution is to avoid dosing children with paracetamol/acetaminophen (aka Tylenol and Calpol). There is a wealth of statistical data on that webpage which suggests a link between acetaminophen and childhood asthma.

 

Since AsthmaUK suggested this week that a third of people with asthma are at a high risk of having a potentially fatal asthma attack (see this BBC report), I reckon AsthmaUK ought to do the decent thing and bring these simple precautionary measures to the attention of asthma sufferers and their relatives and carers. Surely it is a moral imperative.

Thinking about the painkiller acetaminophen/Tylenol/paracetamol/Calpol)

We tend to think of the painkiller acetaminophen, aka Tylenol or paracetamol or Calpol (sickly pink liquid containing paracetamol plus sweeteners, flavourings, preservatives and colourants, formulated to appeal to toddlers) as fairly safe, don't we? But I'm beginning to realise that's probably wrong. Even if you've never taken more than the recommended dose or taken too frequently, and never actually noticed any ill-effects from it, it's nonetheless an unnatural substance for the body to metabolise and so there there is the risk of cumulative liver damage. It has also been found to have a link with the risk of childhood asthma.

I've written previously about the dangers of giving paracetamol/Calpol to toddlers (serious liver damage).Parents will find this article particularly arresting. Sometimes Tylenol can even cause death. Since these products can be bought OTC - over the counter - as well as obtained on prescription, and since, increasingly, painkiller addiction is becoming an illness in its own right (see here and here and here) I suggest that such painkillers need to be resorted to with caution, especially as far as children are concerned.