Allergic and Non Allergic Asthma
Posted: 30th July 2013 | Posted by AdminMR
Robert A. Nathan, MD, is a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and director of the Asthma and Allergy Associates and Research Center in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Q: What’s the difference between asthma that is due to allergies and asthma that is not?
A: Allergic asthma is an overreactive immunologic response that occurs because a person’s body makes too much of an immune system component called immunoglobulin E (IgE). People with allergic asthma are bothered by common allergens like animal dander, dust mites, pollen, mold, or cockroaches, and they are often allergic to more than one of these things.
When a person has asthma that isn’t related to allergies, but is instead triggered by factors that act directly on the lungs, such as infections, exercise, cold air, pollution, and stress, they have non-allergic asthma. Many people with asthma have a combination of non-allergic and allergic asthma. Of the nearly 19 million adults in the United States with asthma, about half have asthma that’s related to allergies. But just 20 percent of adults with asthma have symptoms triggered by just allergies alone.