Originally posted by Cowboyathlete
As a person with asthma who takes Advair (among others) and who hates to stay away from cycling, you are correct. If I start out slowly enough and let my lungs warm up, I can have a blast.
The point here is the difference between masking symptoms and not having a disorder. Suppose you could start out any way you want, not worry about warming your lungs up and still have a blast? If...
IF, diet were found to be at the root of your asthma, and the dietary changes were ones you felt you could make, then you wouldn't have to worry about it at all. Nor would you have to worry about any side effects, taking your medication or even keeping it around. It's a big "IF" at this point but the information posted here, (this thread), by both sides, does suggest that there is a link.
jshct made the point that many asthma medications are anti-inflammatory agents and then concluded that this excluded the possibility of diet being a factor. Salbutamol is a form of altered, synthetic adrenaline. I must assume that much of the text in this thread was skimmed over and much of it missed, or simply dismissed. It's about the immune system. The immune system is a wonderful thing, the only thing that keeps us alive amid the barrage of invasions from microbes and toxins in our environment. But the immune system sometimes reacts inappropriately, (as in allergies), and other times is too weakened to handle the job at hand. Much of that weakening is caused by pesticide residues in the diet.
When cells reproduce, sometimes there is a mutation and apoptosis may fail. This is not an unusual circumstance. It occurs in all of us several times each year. If, as a result of the mutation, these cells fail to reproduce at a proper rate and order, we have the start of cancer. It becomes the job of the immune system to destroy these mutant cells before they become a problem. But, when the immune system fails, cancer is the result. Even in treating cancer, the immune system is the bottom line. Once surgery, chemotherapy or radiation has reduced the number of these cells, the immune system must seek out and destroy any remaining or the cancer will return.
Diet has been shown to play a significant part in the strength of the immune system. Cancer is but one example. People who consume fewer animal-based foods, (and therefore, fewer pesticides), suffer a lesser incidence of cancer. People can spout all they want about a lack of proof that one has anything to do with the other but the fact remains that, for instance, vegetarian women suffer less breast cancer than women who consume animal-based foods. According to Dr. William Castelli, director of the Framingham Heart Study, (the longest, and, I believe still ongoing, study into heart disease), vegetarians have only 40% the cancer rate of those who consume animal products.
Men who consume animal products daily suffer 3.6 times the risk of prostate cancer over men who don't consume those foods. The list of cancers and of other disorders which have a strong statistical tie to diet goes on and on.
"More and more we realize that vegetarian diet is a good idea." -- Dr. Edward Martin, head of Dept. of Defense Health
"Some people are still going to want to eat meat.. we do agree though that vegetarianism is a healthier diet." -- David Stroud of the American Meat Institute
Arguably"The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined. If beef is your idea of ‘real food for real people,’ you'd better live real close to a real good hospital".-- Neal D. Barnard, M.D.
First, it's about being properly informed. This is something that the meat, egg and dairy industries do not want to see happen. Those old posters so many of us learned our "nutrition" information from in grade school were not purchased by the schools. They weren't even educational material. They were provided to the schools, free of charge by the meat and dairy councils. Is it any wonder that the old 4-food groups on those posters suggested that half of your food choices should be meat, poultry and dairy? If you look at one of those posters, and check the tiny print at the bottom or sometimes on the back, you'll see where they came from.
Secondly it's about choice. Once you know what the choices are and what the consequences are, then you should be free to choose for yourself. If you still prefer to medicate rather than prevent, then at least it was a well informed decision.
Unfortunately, there has been a stereotype created in regard to vegetarians. Many see the word as being associated with your standard "nut-jobs" who pray to crystals, search for the center of vortexes, live in grass huts or any number of true oddities. Perhaps the list of vegetarians whom you might recognize is worth a quick look; Albert Einstein, Leonardo De Vinci, Sir Isaac Newton, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Plutarch, Tolstoy, Charles Darwin, Dr. Henry Heimlich, Albert Schweitzer, Nikola Tesla... certainly not a list of crackpots. This is just a sample but the list becomes thought provoking.
Is it possible that fats and cholesterol don't plug just the coronary arteries? Of course, it's already been well proven that arteries all over the body become plugged including those in the brain. If the artery is of sufficient size, we notice a substantial change and we call it a stroke. But many, much smaller blood vessels become plugged as well and the tissues fed by those pathways die.
Be informed by both sides of the issue. That's what this thread seems to have evolved into. Once you've seen the data, done a bit of objective research on your own, then it's time to draw your own conculsions and make your own choices.
