Who gets asthma?: It's complicated

In my second post, I explained an asthma attack/episode (the so-called "pathophysiology"), so to refresh your memory on this please take another glance! I also found another video that I think explains an asthma attack very well, and it goes into more detail than the last one I posted:

This week I am going to touch on what researchers believe puts a person at risk for developing asthma, although this process is not fully understood.

While genetics are thought to play a role, there are many other theories of why a person might get asthma. I found an article published in NCBI, titled "Asthma: epidemiology, etiology and risk factors" (2009), discussing that having a parent with asthma might increase a person's risk of developing it; however, it is not necessary. A person's risk is affected more by the environmental and lifestyle exposures they have experienced. The idea is that certain things from outside of our bodies can mess with certain bits of our genetic material inside our bodies, making them more defective.

So what are these factors that increase our risk besides possible family inheritance? While not fully understood, here are a few: Having a mother who smoked or was stressed during pregnancy, being exposed to cigarette smoke or animals early in life, exposure to mold (such as at home or in school), and exposure to chemicals in the air (such as pollution) or certain chemicals in one's workplace. Researchers have also found that people who have a lower socioeconomic status have a greater change of getting asthma. I once read that one possible explanation for this is that people who are unable to afford newer, safer housing are more likely to live in homes that cost less but as a result may not be as safe for a person's health (for example, housing that is located near a freeway where families will be exposed to fumes or mold-infested homes). 

Something else many people are curious about is why some people get asthma in childhood and later seem to outgrow it, and why some don't have it until adulthood. The NCBI article suggests that children are most affected by factors in pregnancy and early life, whereas adult-onset asthma is commonly related to repeated exposures at work. Below is a video about the myth of "outgrowing" asthma:

And on one final note, I am going to mention that the contributing factors to asthma deaths are also complex. After reviewing the actual disease process, discussed in my second post, it is easier to understand how the narrowing of the airways can cause death, but even with the same disease process, sadly, some people are more likely to die from asthma than others. This may be related to a number of factors, such as a person's desire to not take preventative medication, a person's inability to afford medication, and disparities in health care access among minority populations, to name a few. For more information, I encourage you to view this article:

https://www.aafa.org/pdfs/Disparities.PDF

Sources:

Subbaro, P., Mandhane, P.J., Sears, M.R. (2009). Asthma: epidemiology, etiology and risk factors. CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal, 181(9), E181-E190. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2764772/

The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, The National Pharmaceutical Council. (2005). Ethnic Disparities in the Burden and Treatment of Asthma . https://www.aafa.org/pdfs/Disparities.PDF