Asthma

chasing after something fast—say, a frisky toddler. You’ll soon be gasping for air the way someone with asthma does during an attack. It’s a frightening experience.

The usual setup for an attack combines an allergic (or supersensitive) immune system, an inherited trait, with exposure to environmental allergic triggers such as animal dander, mold spores, and pollen or to environmental irritant triggers such as air pollution, cold air, and cigarette smoke. Other activators can include respiratory infections, colds, laughter, crying, anger, exercise, and stress.

There are two major components of asthma. One is noisy—the wheez­ing, coughing, choking, can’t-catch-your-breath feeling. That’s the part most people call an asthma attack, or bronchospasm and congestion.

The second part of asthma is quiet. It is called inflammation—the part of asthma that is always present but not always noticed. Just as sunburn may not be evident until long after you’ve come in from the sun, airway inflam­mation is not noticeable until the damage has become so extensive that an asthma attack begins.

During an asthma attack, the muscles surrounding the lungs‘ bronchial tubes contract, narrowing airways and making it hard to breathe. People with chronic asthma also have inflammation in their lungs. The membranes lin­ing the inner walls of the air passages become swollen and leaky. And the glands within these walls produce excess mucus. That makes it harder for the lungs to do their job of gas exchange, picking up oxygen from the air and dumping carbon dioxide out of the body.

Asthma is usually treated with drugs that open airways and reduce inflammation as well as by avoiding substances that trigger attacks. For some people, that means finding a new home for a family pet, exchanging the wall- to-wall carpeting for linoleum, or steering clear of cigarette smoke, car and truck exhaust, and chemical fumes.

Dietary counseling for asthma, especially in young children, may include testing for possible problem foods. But it doesn’t often include recommenda­tions for vitamin or mineral supplements, experts say. Nevertheless, some research suggests that certain nutrients may play roles in asthma by reducing airway sensitivity and dampening inflammation.

Note: If you’re feeling well enough to reduce your dosage of asthma medication, do so only under medical supervision, experts warn. Stopping asthma drugs abruptly could lead to problems.

Iron Mineral

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The problem is that many women don’t consume enough iron each day to make up for the 2.5 milligrams or so they lose each month during men­struation. Pregnant women need even more iron. Teens and women nearing menopause also often come up short.

Studies show that women ages 18 to 24 get about 10.7 milligrams a day, which is nowhere near the Daily Value of 18 milligrams.

An iron shortage leads to a reduction in hemoglobin, the iron-based pro­tein in red blood cells that lets these cells pick up

Iron Food Source

oxygen in the lungs and release it in tissues where oxygen is low. It’s simple enough; these cells simply can’t transport the oxygen you need. The cells even look pale under a microscope.

If you do have iron-deficiency anemia, your doctor will initially prescribe large amounts of iron—often 200 to 240 milligrams a day, usually in a form called ferrous sulfate. (Experts caution against taking this much iron with­out medical supervision.) Avoid using over-the-counter preparations such as enteritis-coated iron tablets or capsules containing slow-release granules, experts say. Both can interfere with the body’s ability to absorb the iron.

And make sure your doctor continues your treatment for a sufficient amount of time. Although your anemia will be corrected in 3 to 4 months, it takes an additional 6 to 12 months of therapy for your body’s iron stores to be replenished.

The large amount of iron used to correct anemia is not available through food, we still encourage women to eat more iron-containing foods. Even beef, a food often avoided since cholesterol became a bad word, is recommended to anemic women. It’s an unbeatable source of easily digested iron.