4 ms·
This is not true of asthma. Outdoor air quality in the United States has improved over time [1] and asthma rates has increased. [1] https://www.epa.gov/air-tre
by barney54 7y ago
This is not true of asthma. Outdoor air quality in the United States has improved over time [1] and asthma rates has increased.
[1] https://www.epa.gov/air-trends https://www.epa.gov/air-trends
- dtwest 7y agoAnecdotally, I was diagnosed with asthma as a child and walked around with an inhaler for a few years. I liked it, it tasted funny and seemed like a cool gadget at the time. But I did not have asthma. And I'm convinced there's no way my parents would've been diagnosed with it 30 years ago with the minor symptoms I had. So perhaps the asthma numbers are influenced by an increased willingness to diagnose it. Just a thought.
- icandoit 7y agoThe guys say that death by asthma (severe cases certainly) are gently falling, but it looks pretty flat to me. https://www.cdc.gov/asthma/asthma_stats/asthma_underlying_death.html https://www.cdc.gov/asthma/asthma_stats/asthma_underlying_de... Do you have any intuition for how to identify an increased willingness to over-diagnose? It may be true, but how do we test this hypothesis?
- elhudy 7y agoAuto immune diseases as a whole have increased over just the past 30 years; I'd speculate asthma is a part of this. It will be interesting to see the driving environmental causalities behind these autoimmune disease increases if pollution is not a key variable.
- blaser-waffle 7y agoThe immune system is a use-it-or-lose-it thing. Lots of healthy bodies mean the immune system has to go after something...
- elhudy 7y agoyeah, like in my case... rolls dice....eggs
- cookingrobot 7y agoIs that true? Would frequent vaccines help give the immune system something to do?
- Omnitaus 7y agoOutdoor air quality isn't the only factor in developing asthma