Asthma is a respiratory system disease that causes swelling and narrowing of the lungs’ airways which leads to coughing, chest tightness, wheezing and difficulty breathing. Asthma is a type of obstructive lung disease. Asthma affects 3-5% of United States population. Children are more susceptible to asthma. Airways obstruction may be due to smooth muscle spasms in the wall of small bronchi and bronchioles, edema of the mucosa of the airways, increased mucus secretion, and/or damage to the epithelium of the airways. Asthma is treated with variety of medication like inhalers, pills and nebulizers. But latest research shows that natural health remedies are also helpful in treatment of asthma. Such natural health remedies can be use instead of medicines to relieve the symptoms of asthma.
Recent research shows that ginger compounds are helpful in relieving inflamed airways much in same way that modern medicines do. Researchers used human airway smooth muscle tissue to test ginger compounds. They produced bronchoconstriction in airway smooth muscle tissue similar to that occurs in asthmatic attack. They gained bronchoconsrtiction by exposing tissue to a CNS neurotransmitter, acetylcholine. Ginger was broken down into three different elements – 6-gingerol, 8-gingerol and 6-shogaol. Then these components were mixed with isoproterenol, a beta agonist medicine use for asthma. Then constricted tissues were treated with isoproterenol alone or with any of three combinations of ginger components.
Results shows that tissues which received the mixture of ginger elements and isoproterenol were more relaxed than those which received isoproterenol alone. Among three components of ginger, 6-shogaol showed the most relaxation of tissue. In further studys, researchers found that all three components of ginger decrease the effect of enzyme phosphodiesterase4D. This enzyme slows down feedback that accelerates relaxation of airway smooth muscle. This finding enables asthma patients to rely less on medications. Patients can treat asthma with ginger elements without any latent side effects of medicines. Ginger can also alleviate nausea, reduce cholesterol and reduce inflammation.