In the mid 80s of the last century, the world community was seriously scared: from somewhere in the jungle, where there are many, many wild monkeys, there was an unprecedented threat – acquired human immunodeficiency syndrome. With the advent of the 21st century, a new sword of Damocles – avian flu hung over us. That’s just for these loud “premiers” we somehow did not notice the quiet gait of another mortal enemy of mankind – bronchial asthma.
Had asthma been a contagious disease, it would have long been elevated to the rank of an epidemic, would have been given the title of “general” or even “generalissimo” of ailments. But this cunning illness still goes to the modest “privates”. Although it has long been served to higher posts. According to very rough estimates of asthma patients, there are between 250 and 500 million in the world. Every year, 2-3 million people become its victims. And if at the turn of the XIX – XX centuries, the number of asthmatics on the planet did not exceed one percent of all its inhabitants, today the world average is 10-15 percent. It is estimated that the incidence doubles every 2-3 decades. Now asthma is also significantly younger and has taken on more severe forms: teenagers aged 11-16 die from it. And now the most frightening thing is that any of us can earn “pulmonary plague XXI”! It is clear that the chances are greater for those whose parents suffer from asthma. Heredity is a cunning thing. But, experts clarify, it is not the disease that is transmitted from the parents, but a predisposition to it. Those who work in hazardous industries are also more at risk. And, of course, smokers: their path to asthmatics, as they say, has been ordered. Moreover, tobacco addicts can be treated very slowly, if not at all. This is because asthma and nicotine in their destructive community act on the bronchi as a real disaster.
The cause of the disease is still unclear. Once asthma was associated with allergies, but today this theory is hopelessly outdated. An allergic person can calmly live a lifetime without asthma. As well as asthmatic never suffer from allergies. And it may happen that both the one and the second misfortunes will exist in the body of one person in symbiosis. What would you know: not only people are sick with asthma, but also cats, dogs, horses, the very ones that often provoke allergies.
Later, the expanding dominance of asthma began to be attributed to the deteriorating state of the environment. And it looked quite logical: we breathe, then today God knows what, but not with clean air! If it were not for one significant “but.” Environmentally ideal New Zealand, where there are no industrial enterprises, but only emerald meadows and transparent reservoirs – the record for the number of patients with bronchial asthma. Almost 40 percent of its residents cough and suffer from bouts of suffocation … While the Greenpeace headache – Russia occupies (so far!) The last lines of the world asthmatic rating. We have, according to statistics, the prevalence of asthma – 15 percent among children and 10 – among the adult population.
As you can see, asthma has more puzzles than answers to questions. In order to at least slightly open the curtain that hides an invisible epidemic called “bronchial asthma”, we talk with a man who has devoted to studying the disease for more than a dozen years, and today he has headed the Asthma-Service medical center. He has written several books on the nature of asthma and how to combat it, and now he is finishing a new work with the sensational title Asthma. The true cause of the disease. ” Our questions are answered by a pulmonologist, candidate of medical science Viktor Solopov, the author of the original theory of the evolution of asthma and the developer of a highly effective method (it gives a positive result in 95 percent of cases) of treating asthma with the help of ultrasonic inhalations.
What is bronchial asthma?
– From the title it is clear that it is associated with the bronchi. The bronchi or bronchial tree is a part of the lungs, which is a system of tubular, fissile, like tree branches. The trunk of the tree is the trachea, and the pairwise branching branches are the bronchi. Now imagine a tree turned upside down, you get a bronchial tree. Inside the bronchi are covered with mucus, which with special cilia, like an escalator tape in the subway, removes dirt, dust, soot, microbes and other particles from the air from the bottom up to the pharynx where it is spat out or unnoticed by humans is swallowed. So the air is cleaned and simultaneously warms up in the bronchi – this is their main function. If the patency of the tubes is broken due to a narrowing or obstruction, problems will arise: “lay” the chest, shortness of breath will begin, breathing will be difficult, whistles and wheezing in the lungs will begin.
Violation of the patency of the bronchi at the beginning of the disease is due to their spasm and edema caused by special substances – mediators of allergic inflammation. And just as the nasal mucosa swells, the bronchial mucosa swells, narrowing their lumen. This complicates the movement of mucus, and therefore after the attack there is a cough and sputum from the bronchi, often in the form of mucus plugs. The progression of the disease aggravates and lengthens the attacks, which are poorly removed by drugs. This is a consequence of inflammation and accumulation of mucus in the bronchial tree. At the beginning of the disease, a small amount of sputum is cleared, and after a few years its volume increases. The reason for this is that the number of mucous cells in the bronchial tree increases 10 to 20 times.
– How did you become involved in asthma?
– This happened by accident. I went to the residency, where they dealt with the problems of the lungs. I myself did not have asthma. If a doctor has asthma and treats others for it, this is the same thing that a bald doctor will deal with the problem of hair loss. Therefore, you should not be so sensitive to the recommendations of specialists from other countries whose asthma indicators are higher than those of Russia. They can not cope with the problem, but they also teach us!
Pay attention: the USA, the UK, almost all of Europe suffer from asthma. Recently met a very interesting link. By the way, I had the same assumption, but there was no actual confirmation of this: for some reason, the highest incidence rate is observed in English-speaking countries or in countries that are in close contact with them. In New Zealand, for example, 40 percent. But this is an agricultural country, everything is in order with the state of the environment. And all the countries of Europe have long crossed this line, in which we are, an unfavorable state of the environment. In the center of London, the air is as clean as in the Moscow region. And the problem of asthma is increasing and growing! The only country where the incidence is low for unexplained reasons is Finland. Only 1-2 percent of the population is sick there.
– When did you find out about the existence of such a disease?
– Asthma as a disease known since the end of the last century. Thanks to the work of many scientists and, in particular, German – Kurshman and Leiden. But to say that before it did not exist, it is impossible. Cases of asthma Just before this time was not so much. Today in Russia, for example, every tenth is asthmatic. But he does not know about it, only coughs. And they say to him: “This is your chronic bronchitis or something related to environmental problems.” But there is, albeit rarely, a cough variant of asthma: a man of twenty coughs and suddenly falls into intensive care. There it turns out that he has asthma.
Since the 50s of the 20th century, both foreign and according to our data, the problem of asthma has risen to its full height. Although then the incidence rate in the world ranged from 1-3 percent. Over the past 50 years, this figure has increased tenfold! If there are 40 million AIDS patients in the world, it is called an epidemic. And asthmatics are 10 times more, and 25 million of them suffer from a severe form of the disease and can die at any minute. And no one beeps! Just think about it, while I work in this area, tens of millions of patients died!
– Does the gender of the victims of asthma play any role?
– Let’s just say that women and men get equal. True, boys more often than girls. But women become severely disabled. The nature of the hormonal system in them can aggravate inflammation. Young women, respectively, are sick more often than the elderly, because hormones disappear with age.
– Has a disease changed in a century and a half?
– Undoubtedly, both the nature and the course of the disease have changed. And that’s why. Did 150 years ago a man who fell ill took medication out of hand? Not. He went to the doctor. And today: turn on the TV, and there they say: “Do you cough? Buy our wonderful product – and it will all go away! ”Go to the pharmacy, wait five minutes, some young girl will appear and complain to the pharmacist:“ I’ve been coughing for about three months now. What would I have to drink? ”She would turn to a specialist, but the seller needs to sell the medicine … Medicines are the sea, and people at the slightest indisposition are beginning to jam antibiotics, and God knows what else! All biological processes, and the disease is also a biological process, proceed in the same way. By its own laws. But when he is actively influenced from outside, he changes the clinic.
Earlier, when medicine was regionalized in Soviet times, people with asthma knew doctors by sight. They lived in a hospital. Yes, and “lived” can not be said: this is not life, but continuous bouts of coughing, choking. As it is now with asthmatics, it is difficult to say, because they are treated anywhere and anything … But I can say one thing: these people do not see anything except colds, drugs and seizures. Many can not learn. I had a patient, a girl who could not finish the eleventh grade due to asthma. She underwent a course of treatment, and … went to college. True, there began to smoke …
– By the way, about smoking. Does it make asthma worse?
– If – God forbid! – A smoker suffers from asthma, it is very difficult to treat. He has asthma almost immediately takes a severe form. Now even a new ailment has appeared – obstructive pulmonary disease. In fact, this is an asthma smoker whose lower parts of the lungs become clogged with mucus. You have probably seen that in America there are people who travel in wheelchairs, all hung with oxygen cartridges. It is already impossible to cure them, but life can be extended. We have such patients die, which is why Russian smokers know nothing about this danger.
Just yesterday, my assistant, Irina Viktorovna Lunichkina, showed me a patient who was treating, but no improvement was coming. And he argues that only recently did x-rays. And everything is clean. I explain to him that X-ray is like a shadow on the asphalt. How is it possible to determine what you are wearing, what color your eyes and hair, etc.? A non-smoking person with asthma, after two weeks of our course, if not fully healthy, then at least feels so. Then how to relieve asthma in smoking people is very difficult. Almost impossible. The smoker’s illness is aggravated by the fact that the entire mucosa of the respiratory tract is “burned out” like grass on a lawn. Normal bronchi inside – this is like an even English lawn.
Man as a biological object in contact with the outside world by three surfaces: the skin, the mucosa of the respiratory tract and the mucosa of the digestive tract. These three environments are very similar to each other: in structure, functions, etc. This is the boundary between man and the external environment, which should not miss anything unnecessary. In a smoker, it becomes permeable like filter paper.
If you calculate the surface of the bronchi, it will take 5-10 square meters. The surface of human skin, for comparison, 1-2 square. meters. Remember how burned people suffer: intoxication, kidneys fail. And in a smoker, this tragedy is played out on an area five times the area of the body! The mucous membrane of the bronchi, of course, is not as burnt as the skin in case of a fire, but it is permeable to all harmful substances that fall on its surface with inhaled air. And it reacts poorly to medicines that can be used.
– Is it possible to restore this “burned” epithelium?
– Remember the human skin after a fire – it will never return to its original state. In short, smoking and asthma are incompatible, like genius and villainy. Do you know what the burning temperature of a cigarette is at the tip?
– Not.
– 700 – 800 degrees. The tip of a cigarette can melt tin, lead. Smoke inhaled by a smoker reaches a temperature of 150 degrees. Think about it …
– With smokers, everything is clear. And what about the true cause of asthma?
– The fact is that the cause of asthma is one, but eliminating it immediately makes no sense, because a person dies from its consequences. A classic example of the same disease is cholera. With the only difference that its pathogen is known – it is a cholera vibrio. But a person dies from the fact that water removes electrolytes from the body – sodium and potassium salts. Also, patients with asthma do not die from the cause that causes the disease, but because with chronic, increasing obstruction of the bronchi the purification of the lungs is impaired. Therefore, oxygen is not delivered to the blood.
– How is asthma treated at the Asthma Service Center?
– We treat not asthma, but a patient with asthma. We establish what is happening in the lungs of a particular person at the moment. If we figured out the cause, we would lose time. There is no cure for the disease, there is the work of the doctor and the patient. The disease is mute. The task of the doctor is to understand what she has done in the human body during its existence.
If you calculate the surface of the bronchi, it will take 5-10 square meters. The surface of human skin, for comparison, 1-2 square. meters. Remember how burned people suffer: intoxication, kidneys fail. And in a smoker, this tragedy is played out on an area five times the area of the body! The mucous membrane of the bronchi, of course, is not as burnt as the skin in case of a fire, but it is permeable to all harmful substances that fall on its surface with inhaled air. And it reacts poorly to medicines that can be used.
– Is it possible to restore this “burned” epithelium?
– Remember the human skin after a fire – it will never return to its original state. In short, smoking and asthma are incompatible, like genius and villainy. Do you know what the burning temperature of a cigarette is at the tip?
– Not.
– 700 – 800 degrees. The tip of a cigarette can melt tin, lead. Smoke inhaled by a smoker reaches a temperature of 150 degrees. Think about it …
– With smokers, everything is clear. And what about the true cause of asthma?
– The fact is that the cause of asthma is one, but eliminating it immediately makes no sense, because a person dies from its consequences. A classic example of the same disease is cholera. With the only difference that its pathogen is known – it is a cholera vibrio. But a person dies from the fact that water removes electrolytes from the body – sodium and potassium salts. Also, patients with asthma do not die from the cause that causes the disease, but because with chronic, increasing obstruction of the bronchi the purification of the lungs is impaired. Therefore, oxygen is not delivered to the blood.
– How is asthma treated at the Asthma Service Center?
– We treat not asthma, but a patient with asthma. We establish what is happening in the lungs of a particular person at the moment. If we figured out the cause, we would lose time. There is no cure for the disease, there is the work of the doctor and the patient. The disease is mute. The task of the doctor is to understand what she has done in the human body during its existence.