Fight asthma through diet control

Lifestyle changes are taking a toll on the health of people, reveal researchers. Night shifts, hours of work in air-conditioned rooms, pressure to excel in the cut throat competition, sleeplessness etc are some common characteristics of modern urban man’s lifestyle. Added to it is the junk food that he/she gulps down. The result is obvious: A deteriorating health which turns out to be the vulnerable target of any kind of ailment.

Asthma is a common disease seen in many due to the changes in lifestyle and food habits. Pollution and dust, of course trigger asthma and we are so part of the polluted city atmosphere that it is almost impossible to avoid these factors. Apart from this, milk and dairy products sometimes cause asthma, if the patient is allergic to these products. Consuming meat too can adversely affect a person, may increase leukotrienes in his/her body, worsening the asthma.

``I was suffering from asthma since when I was 12. But I got a solution after 18 years,’’ says Chris Harris, a graphic designer based in New York. ``When I came on a tour to Kerala, I visited an ayurvedic health resort for a massage. I happened to tell the doctor there that I have asthma. The first thing he said was to change my diet,’’ Chris Harris says.

If you are an asthma patient, Ayurveda practitioners will advise you to bid farewell to junk food, excessive consumption of cool drinks, ice creams, meat etc. Excessive exposure to dust and cold wind too should be avoided and smoking is surely a taboo. Raw milk and heavy dinners are some other things you will have to avoid to keep the asthma away.