How do air purifiers help the symptoms?
Breathing is something we do on a daily basis and can take for granted. For asthmatics, breathing normally is appreciated every moment. Asthma is a disease that affects a person’s lungs and air passageways and can make it difficult for him or her to breathe. Asthma affects approximately 20 million people in the United States. It is a disease that has no known cure, but there are many ways to treat asthma and suppress its symptoms.
Air purifiers can help.
Asthma is a disease that consists two main components: 1) constriction and 2) inflammation both occur in the lung passageways. Constriction is when the airways narrow due to muscles tightening around them, and inflammation is when the airways get irritated and begin to swell. When these actions happen concurrently, they trigger asthma symptoms, such as difficulty breathing and swelling of the lungs. A person experiencing an asthmatic attack will typically have trouble catching his or her breath and usually coughs and wheezes in an effort to breathe.
Asthma attacks can occur at any time. While some simply seem like a shortness of breath, other attacks can be severe. Due to the varying characteristics of the disease, one may be unaware of having asthma and the need to treat it. If asthma goes untreated, a serious danger is the decrease in lung function. The disease makes a person’s lungs work harder and without treatment, and asthma sufferer will have weaker lungs.
There are many contaminants in the air that can be
asthma triggers. Some of the contaminants include pet dander, allergens, pollen, dust, and chemicals. When these substances are breathed in, asthmatics are sometimes affected and experience difficulty breathing. Seasonal allergies may also lead to an asthma attack. However, the toxins found in indoor air can easily be filtered out with an effective air purifier.
There are simple things that can be done to prevent asthma attacks, such as not smoking tobacco products in the home and dusting all furniture regularly. Air purifiers are proven to be the most effective way to keep indoor air clean and safe. High Efficiency Particulate Air (
HEPA) filters that are used in air purifiers are effective at absorbing most toxins in indoor air that can be related to asthma attacks. They are able to remove 99.7% of all particles that are 0.03 microns and larger. Particles include pollen and dust particles, which are the main cause of asthma attacks among sufferers. If indoor air pollutants are not removed from the air, they will circulate a room with no escape. The pollutants are then breathed in and can cause a severe or minor asthmatic attack. An air purifier absorbs these particles, so they cannot be circulated throughout the air.
A review of indoor air pollutants published by the American Thoracic Society, states that air purifiers containing the HEPA filter are able to remove a significant amount of particles from indoor air, making the air safer to breathe. Asthmatics who use an air purifier in their home are less likely to experience an asthma attack since the pollutants that trigger the attacks are no longer present in the indoor air.
There is no known cure for asthma, and people diagnosed with the disease most often must deal with it for their lifetimes. However, with the help of air purifiers, people find their asthma attacks become a rare occurrence instead of a daily struggle. By eliminating particles in the air that trigger attacks, air purifiers are helping people with asthma to cope with their daily lives.
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