Shortness of breath and asthma : beware of alcohol !

Caution : You must consult your doctor for your health. This page presents only a personal and alternative point of view which should not be considered as an attempt to prescribe medicine.

When you have asthma, you need to be careful about what you eat and what you drink, such as alcohol.

This can indeed have an impact on your health.

Understanding asthma

Asthma is a chronic disease characterized by permanent inflammation or irritation of the bronchi.

It manifests itself in crises which can be more or less serious.

These are characterized by breathing difficulties, also called dyspnea in medical parlance.

The rest of the time, a person with asthma has normal breathing.

To breathe, air comes through the lungs through the bronchi.

In a person with asthma, the walls of the bronchi, called the bronchial lining, are thicker and irritated.

This makes the bronchi more sensitive and certain factors (such as cigarette smoke or air pollution) promote reactions that are excessive.

This is where an asthma attack occurs: there is a lot of mucus secreting and the muscles around the bronchi contract, making it difficult to pass air.

A seizure can last a few minutes or even a few hours.

Asthma is a disease that arises from the combination of a favorable genetic predisposition to allergy and exposure to favorable environmental factors.

A person who is genetically predisposed to have asthma but who is not exposed to an environment that facilitates the disease will not have asthma attacks.

Links with alcohol

For people with asthma, there are medicines that can control it.

However, the most effective solution is to prevent seizures by limiting exposure to the triggers that promote their onset.

Alcohol is notably involved in several studies carried out by researchers.

An Australian survey showed that in 33% of those polled, alcohol triggered an asthma attack within an hour.

Those responsible are none other than the following ingredients: histamine and sulfites.

The first triggers swelling of the respiratory mucous membranes which causes shortness of breath and difficulty in breathing.

The second, which could be present in too much quantity in certain alcoholic beverages, is a trigger for seizures.

As you can see, too much alcohol consumption and therefore these two components would facilitate the onset of asthmatic attacks.

In addition, alcohol could indirectly increase stress and have a negative effect on healthy living (sleep or diet).

This would affect the symptoms of asthma.

Breathe and feel better

So no, it is not forbidden to drink alcohol when you have asthma.

Some are just more sensitive than others.

However, it is recommended to pay attention to it and therefore, for example, to drink wines and beer organic, or with less chemical transformations.

We also advise against mixing different alcohols in a party.

Finally, asthma is a so-called respiratory disease.

It affects your ability to inhale air and therefore to breathe properly.

Working on your breathing therefore seems to be an interesting way to solve the problem.

Breathing coach Loris Vitry recently worked on the development of a free video workshop on respiratory movement.

With the help of advice and exercises, it gives you the keys to freeing your diaphragm and therefore feeling better.

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