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How Do Air Purifiers Help Asthma Symptoms?
November 21, 2005 @ 6:44 am · Filed under Air Purifier General Info
Breathing is largely taken for granted, after all you do not have to think about breathing to do it.. breathing is a subconscious activity. However, for asthmatics breathing is something that is greatly appreciated every moment of every day. The asthma disease affects the lungs and air passageways of an individual making it hard for the person to breathe. Roughly 20 million people are affected by asthma in the U.S. There is no known cure for asthma, however, there are a lot of things a sufferer can do to suppress the symptoms such as using an air purifier to treat asthma.
The asthma disease is made up of two main components which are constriction and inflammation. Both of these components happen in the lung passageways. Constriction is the narrowing of the airways due to muscles tightening around them, inflammation is the irritation of of the airways which causes them to swell. The combination of these components cause the symptoms of asthma which is breathing difficulty and swelling of the lungs resulting in a person experiencing an asthma attack coughing and wheezing to try and breathe properly. Asthma attacks can happen at any given moment, sometimes severe and sometimes just like a shortness of breath.
Air purifiers are able to help with asthma in the fact that there are quite a lot of contaminants in the air that can trigger asthma. Such air contaminants include: allergens, pet dander, dust, pollen or chemicals. When these airborne substances get inhaled by an asthma sufferer they can cause a reaction resulting in the asthmatic experiencing difficulty breathing. The toxins found within indoor air can be removed through the use of an air purifier thus creating a better environment for asthma sufferers. With less contaminants in the air the probability of an asthma attack is much lower for the asthma sufferer.
The majority of air purifiers have been proven to filter out 99.7% of all particles from indoor air. Chemical fumes, tobacco smoke and dust can be absorbed by an air purifier filter. High Efficiency Particulate Air Filters (HEPA filters) that are often used in air purifiers are very efficient in filtering out most toxins that can be related to asthma attacks from within indoor air . They can remove 99.7% of all particles that are 0.03 microns & larger. These kind of particles include dust and pollen particles - often the major cause of asthma attacks for sufferers. If the pollutants from the indoor air are not removed they circulate around the indoor space eventually getting breathed in potentially causing minor to severe asthma attacks. With the use of an air purifier the pollutants are taken out of the air so the are unable to continue circulating through the air.
During 1990 a review of indoor air pollutants published by The American Thoracic Society reported air purifiers using HEPA filters can filter a significant quantity of particles from indoor air, resulting in cleaner & safer air for breathing. Asthmatics utilizing air purifiers in their homes have a smaller chance of experiencing an asthma attack due to the asthma triggering pollutants being no longer present in the air they are breathing indoors.