May 4th has been designated World Asthma Day. In fact, in the US, the entire month of May is regarded as Asthma Awareness Month. Events all around the world are being held in an attempt to increase awareness of a condition growing in near epidemic proportions. Changes in climate, pollutants in our encironment, and the ’western’ diet are among the main factors purported to be manifesting the unprecedented rise in this ’disease of civilization’. The related atopic conditions of seasonal allergies, chronic sinusitis, and dermatitis (eczema) are growing at a similar rate.

• Currently, allopathic medicine is floundering in its attempts to stymie the tidal wave of worldwide atopic growth, using its ’band-aid’ technique of masking symptoms. Inside of this conventional medical model, we are fortunate to have discovered that inhaled bronchodilators will save the life of an asthmatic suffering an acute attack, and that corticosteroids, over time, will reduce airway inflammation in the chronic asthmatic. Unfortunately, this story does not end here. Extended use of these medications, as life-saving as they may be, are very damaging to the body and lead to serious medical complications later in life. These ’band-aid’ treatments do nothing to address the underlying causes for atopic conditions, and their adverse effects often prove worse than the conditions they’re intended to treat.
• Although asthma is not a new disease by any means, the condition has undergone a dramatic increase in the late twentieth century. In the last 30 years, the incidence of asthma has grown by 300% in the US and is responsible for approximately 180,000 deaths worldwide. 
• For millennia, the ancient Chinese have documented the treatment of symptoms resembling those seen in asthma. More recent documentation in Chinese medical texts shows a highly advanced and effective system for the treatment of asthma using a protocol of ingested herbal remedies and acupuncture. Most recently, studies are being done in the US to discover the reasons behind the effectiveness of Chinese medicine in treating asthma. The most groundbreaking of such studies came out of New York by Drs. Li and Brown. In doing a double-blind randomized study looking at the effectiveness of specific herbal treatments of asthma, they discovered that the immune systems of those treated with the actual herbal formulas were shown to undergo a ’rebalancing’. A regulation of the T-Helper cells of the immmune system in the subjects treated within the herbal protocol were shown to be the reason for the apparent reduction in frequency and severity of their asthma symptoms. The herbs were shown to decrease the hyper-reponse of the autoimmune system, and to increase the immune system’s ability to fight disease.

In Traditional Chinese medicine theory, the answer is simply found in its principle of holism. The treatment does not focus on treating asthma; rather it focuses on bringing the entire system back into balance, effectively stopping acute symptoms as well as working to put an end to the underlying imbalances causing the symptoms. Thereby, it is said to be treating the ’root’ and the ’branch’ of the condition simultaneously.

As the popularity of Traditional Chinese Medicine increases in the West, new hope arises in the world’s great dilemma of how to deal with the massive increase in the incidence of asthma. On  World Asthma Day, let’s embrance a medical system that has survived the test of time, looking to make a difference today. 

Article by: Dr. Peter Wood, Dr.TCM.

Wishing you a healthy and happy May.

Prepared by Qi Integrated Health Centre Inc., 2010

*The information contained is for educational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or prevent disease.