Asthma is often misdiagnosed in older adults because of the common belief that it is just a childhood disease. But according to the American Lung

Association, experts now think about 10 percent of the people with asthma are over age 65.

Some adults with asthma have dealt with the disease all their lives. Others may have had asthma as a child and experienced it again after many symptom-free

years. But if you’ve developed breathing problems as an adult, you have lots of company. Lateonset asthma is becoming more common and is often triggered by a

serious respiratory infection.

Women are more likely to be affected than men, possibly because of their smaller airways. Researchers think hormones may also play a part. They’ve found that

women who are on hormone replacement therapy HRT are 50 percent more likely to develop asthma than women who aren’t on HRT.

Although asthma is a serious and potentially fatal disease, you can protect yourself by avoiding things that trigger an attack. Cigarette smoke, cold air,

dust, and mold are a few examples of asthma triggers. And research shows that eating foods rich in certain nutrients may help reduce your asthma symptoms.

Nutritional blockbusters that fight asthma

Vitamin C. Researchers say antioxidant vitamins could play an important role in preventing asthma or controlling its symptoms. Vitamin C is the perfect

example. Studies have found that vitamin C not only improves asthma symptoms, it helps you avoid the disease altogether. For top-notch asthma protection, mix

up a fruit salad with oranges, pineapple, strawberries, kiwifruit, and papaya. Then pile your dinner plate with high-C vegetables like broccoli, red and

green peppers, brussels sprouts, cabbage, and peas.

Vitamin E. Another antioxidant powerhouse that may cut your risk of asthma is vitamin E. A study in Saudi Arabia found that children who had the least

vitamin E in their diets were three times more likely to get asthma. Research also shows that vitamin E helps protect you from developing this condition as

an adult. For extra lung protection, sprinkle some vitamin E-packed wheat germ, almonds, peanuts, or sunflower seeds on a salad or in baked goods.

Vitamin A. This vitamin completes the asthma-fighting trio of antioxidants. Studies find that people who eat vitamin A-rich foods tend to have clearer air

passages, which makes breathing easier. You’ll find vitamin A in meat and dairy products, especially beef and chicken livers, cottage cheese, ricotta cheese,

and egg yolks.

Lycopene. Think pink – or red – to help avoid asthma symptoms. Lycopene, the carotenoid that gives foods their pink or red coloring, may protect against

asthma, according to a recent small study. Researchers gave people with exercise-induced asthma 30 milligrams of lycopene each day for one week. At the end

of the week, more than half the people showed significant protection against asthma symptoms.

It’s always best to get your nutrients from foods, and in this case, it could earn you double protection. Many foods that contain lycopene, such as tomatoes,

pink grapefruit, and watermelon, are also high in vitamin C.

Magnesium and selenium. These minerals may be the dynamic duo of asthma-fighting minerals. Magnesium acts as a bronchodilator, which means it helps open up

your airways, making it easier to breathe. Selenium’s power against asthma may come from its antioxidant abilities. Studies show that people with low levels

of selenium are more likely to have asthma. You’ll find selenium in meats and shellfish and in vegetables and grains grown in selenium-rich soil. Food

sources of magnesium include avocados, oysters, and beans. Broccoli is a good source of both minerals.

Water. A tall glass of water could be your ally if you’re asthmatic. Researchers at the University at Buffalo UB discovered that the symptoms of people

with exercise-induced asthma got worse, both before and during exercise, when they didn’t drink enough water.

Frank Cerny, Ph.D., stresses the importance of drinking water, especially if you have asthma. “The message continues to be, Drink fluids whenever you get

the chance,” says Cerny, chairman of the UB Department of Physical Therapy, Exercise, and Nutrition Sciences. “If you have asthma, dehydration may make it

worse, particularly during exercise.”

Your body needs water long before you feel thirst so don’t wait until you’re thirsty to wet your whistle. Make sure you drink at least six full glasses of

water every day – more when you exercise.

Caffeine. Start your morning with a fragrant cup of coffee, and you may ease your asthma. Caffeine is chemically related to theophylline, a drug used to

treat asthma. When you have an asthma attack, the muscles around your airways tighten up and your passages swell, making it difficult to breathe. Caffeine

helps relax your bronchial tubes so your airways stay open. Research shows that caffeine can help improve symptoms for up to four hours.

The peripheral nerves are bundles containing many individual nerve-fibers, and are similar to telephone cables carrying many individual wires. There are two basic types of nerve-fibers–motor and sensory. The motor fibers carry electrical impulses outward from the spinal cord to the muscles, causing them to contract. The sensory fibers carry electrical impulses inward from the skin, joints and other structures to the spinal cord, providing the nervous system with inputs, among others, concerning the senses of touch, pain and temperature.

Peripheral nerves can be pinched or injured in specific locations. When this occurs, the problem is called a “mononeuropathy,” meaning that a single peripheral nerve is affected. Examples of mononeuropathy include carpal tunnel syndrome in which the median nerve is pinched at the wrist, and peroneal neuropathy in which the peroneal nerve is injured near the knee. Because the median and peroneal nerves contain both motor and sensory fibers, people with these conditions can experience both weakness and numbness.

In carpal tunnel syndrome, certain muscles of the thumb can become weak, while numbness affects the thumb, index finger, middle finger and part of the ring finger–but not the little finger. In peroneal neuropathy muscles that lift the front and outer edges of the foot can become weak, while numbness affects the outer surface of the calf and the top of the foot–but not its bottom. In cases of mononeuropathy only the structures connected to that one nerve’s fibers are affected.

In contrast, “polyneuropathy” produces a pattern of weakness and numbness completely different from that seen in mononeuropathies. Instead of affecting the fibers of just a single peripheral nerve, polyneuropathy simultaneously impacts fibers traveling in numerous peripheral nerves.

In usual cases of polyneuropathy it is the longest nerve-fibers that are most at risk, while the shorter nerve-fibers are less affected. In brief, polyneuropathy is a “length-dependent” neuropathy. Because the longest nerve-fibers in the body are those that run from the lower back to the feet, in typical cases of polyneuropathy the first part of the body to become weak or numb is the feet.

In polyneuropathy muscles ordinarily served by more than one peripheral nerve can become weak, and the numbness extends beyond the territory of any single nerve. If a person with polyneuropathy pulled on stockings, he or she could cover the parts of the legs affected by weakness and numbness. Thus, the weakness and numbness affecting the legs are described as showing a “stocking” pattern of loss.

When the medical condition responsible for the polyneuropathy causes worsening damage to the peripheral nerves, the stockings climb ever higher as the next-longest nerve-fibers become involved. By the time a person’s stockings climb as high the knees, he or she might also notice symptoms in the fingers. This is because the nerve-fibers running from the neck to the fingers are about as long as those running from the lower back to the knees.

If a person with polyneuropathy affecting the hands and arms pulled on gloves, he or she could cover the parts of the arms affected by weakness and numbness. Thus, the weakness and numbness affecting the arms are described as showing a “glove” pattern of loss, and when legs and arms are simultaneously impacted, it is called a “stocking-glove” pattern.

Medical doctors are usually able to detect polyneuropathy from patients’ histories of symptoms and their physical examinations, but tests of muscle and nerve electricity–called electromyography and nerve conduction studies–are often helpful in characterizing the extent and pattern of nerve impairment.

Polyneuropathy is more of a category of nerve impairment than a final diagnosis, and numerous diseases can produce the same end-result of stocking-glove loss.

Diabetes is the most common cause of polyneuropathy in both the U.S. and the rest of the world. Blood sugars are elevated in people with diabetes, but the extent of polyneuropathy is not strictly related to how bad the blood sugars are, or for how long they have been elevated. For example, one person with severe, long-term elevations of blood sugars might have very little polyneuropathy, while another person might have polyneuropathy as the very first symptom of their diabetes. At present there is no good treatment for the polyneuropathy of diabetes apart from best-achievable control of blood sugars, but when annoying sensations like burning or tingling are present, these can be managed with topical or oral medications.

Ingestion of toxic chemicals can also produce polyneuropathy, and alcohol is the chemical most frequently involved. And while people with heavy and prolonged use of alcohol are more likely than light drinkers to develop this complication, here, too, some people seem more susceptible to this problem than others. Abstinence can keep the polyneuropathy from worsening, but the already damaged nerve-fibers might not fully recover. Because people with alcoholic polyneuropathy often lack sufficient quantities of thiamine, a vitamin important to the nerves, supplementing well-rounded, nutritious meals with this vitamin is usually helpful.

Inherited polyneuropathy can be transmitted in families in either a dominant or recessive form. In families with dominant transmission a bad gene from just one parent is sufficient to produce the disease in a child. In families with recessive transmission defective genes from both parents are required in order to produce the disease.

As a final illustration of the range of disease processes that can cause polyneuropathy let’s consider Guillain-Barr pronounced GEE-on bah-RAY syndrome, also known by the more cumbersome term of acute inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy. In contrast to the diabetic, alcoholic and genetic forms of polyneuropathy that typically worsen at a pace measured in months or years, Guillain-Barr develops in a matter of days. The affected patient usually notices weakness about the ankles, followed rapidly by weakness about the knees, hips, arms and even of the muscles controlling breathing. Symptoms usually peak within two weeks during which time a patient should be monitored in a hospital in case a ventilator is needed to support breathing. Subsequent recovery of strength occurs over a course of weeks to months.

Guillain-Barr syndrome involves inflammation of nerves and nerve-roots spinal cord connections caused by an overactive immune system. This is a so-called auto-immune disease in which a person’s immune system attacks a tissue within their own bodies, in this case the nerves. Certain treatments that temporarily suppress the action of the immune system have been shown by randomized, controlled trials–the gold-standard of medical proof–to improve outcome in this condition.

C 2005 by Gary Cordingley

Oil vs. Dry or Water-Soluble

The oil-soluble vitamins, such as A, D, E, and K, are available and advisable in &8220;dry&8221; or water-soluble form for people who tend to get upset stomachs from oil, for acne sufferers or anyone with a skin condition where oil ingestion is not advised, and for dieters who have cut most of the fat from their meals.Fat-soluble vitamins need fat for proper assimilation. If you&8217;re on a low-fat diet and taking A, D, E, or supplements, I suggest you use the dry form.

Synthetic vs. Natural and Inorganic vs. Organic

Synthetic vitamins might be less likely to upset your budget but not your stomach.

When I&8217;masked if there&8217;s a difference between synthetic and natural vitamins, I usually say only one&8212;and that&8217;s to you. Though synthetic vitamins and minerals have produced satisfactory results, the benefits from natural vitamins, on a variety of levels, surpass them. Chemical analysis of both might appear the
same, but there&8217;s more to natural vitamins because there&8217;s more to those substances in nature.

Synthetic vitamin C is just that, ascorbic acid and nothing more. Natural
C from rose hips contains bioflavonoids, the entire C complex, which make
the C much more effective.

Natural vitamin E, which can include all the tocopherols, not just alpha, is more potent and better absorbed than its synthetic double.

According to Dr. Theron G. Randolph, noted allergist A synthetically derived substance may cause a reaction in a chemically susceptible person
when the same material of natural origin is tolerated, despite the two substances having identical chemical structures.

On the other hand, people who are allergic to pollen could experience an
undesirable reaction to a natural vitamin C that had possible pollen impurities.

Nonetheless, as many who have tried both can attest, there are fewer gas-
trointestinal upsets with natural supplements, and far fewer toxic reactions when taken in higher than recommended dosage.

The difference between inorganic and organic is not the same as the one
between synthetic and natural, though that is the common misconception. All
vitamins are organic. They are substances containing carbon.

We must obtain vitamins from natural foods, or dietary supplements in order to sustain life.

When I mention the word vitamin, most people think pill. Thinking pill
brings to mind confusing images of medicine and drugs. Though vita-
mins can and certainly often do the work of both medicine and drugs,
they are neither.

Quite simply, vitamins are organic substances necessaryfor life. Vitamins
are essential to the normal functioning of our bodies and, save for a few
exceptions, cannot be manufactured or synthesized internally. Necessary for
our growth, vitality, and general well-being, they are found in minute quanti-ties in all natural food. We must obtain vitamins from these foods or fromdietary supplements.

What you have to keep in mind is that supplements, which are available
in tablet, capsule, liquid, powder, spray, patch, and injection forms, are stilljust food substances, and, unless synthetic, are also derived from living plantsand animals.

It is impossible to sustain life without all the essential vitamins.

What Vitamins Are Not

Vitamins are neither pep pills nor substitutes for food.

A lot of people think vitamins can replace food. They cannot. In fact, vit-
amins cannot be assimilated without ingesting food. There are a lot of
erroneous beliefs about vitamins, and I hope this book can clear up most
of them.

Vitamins are not pep pills and have no caloric or energy value of
their own.
Vitamins are not substitutes for protein or for any other nutrients, such as minerals, fats, carbohydrates, water&8212;or even for each other!
Vitamins themselves are not the components of our body structures.
You cannot take vitamins, stop eating, and expect to be healthy.

How They Work

If you think of the body as an automobile&8217;s combustion engine and vita-
mins as spark plugs, you have a fairly good idea of how these amazing minute food substances work for us.

Vitamins regulate our metabolism through enzyme systems. A single deficiency can endanger the whole body.

Vitamins are components of our enzyme systems which, acting like spar
plugs, energize and regulate our metabolism, keeping us tuned up and func
tioning at high performance.

Compared with our intake of other nutrients like proteins, fats, and carbo
hydrates, our vitamin intake even on some megadose regimens is minuscule
But a deficiency in even one vitamin can endanger the whole human body.

But, you should always remember that supplements are supplements and not replacement of regular and healthy food. Without food, they will not work.