New York catches colds, Manila sneezes–that’s how the world stock markets often act up and such behavior seems to have been rubbed off on people’s health across the globe.
Westerners are thrashing from an unprecedented rise in allergies; Asians are getting fidgety over a similar predicament. In the US, about 55 percent of the population tested positive to one or more allergens while hospitalizations due top food allergies have soared to 400 percent in the United Kingdom since 1990 as admissions for anaphylaxis went up 600 percent.
In Asia, allergies and asthma have doubled in many countries, compared to just a few decades back.
In rural areas of Bangladesh, asthma prevalence in children has hit 16 percent, compared to just one percent in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. Asthma is the world’s top respiratory killer.
Allergy-caused death is also high in Asia, compared to the rest of the world. For example, for Chinese asthma patients aged five to 34, the death rate exceeds 10 percent. Actual overall death rate in Asia may be higher since fatalities are not recognized as suffering from asthma– most hospital admissions record them as succumbing to cardio-respiratory arrest.
In the Asia-Pacific region, researchers found that 40 percent of recognized asthma sufferers need emergency medical treatment at least once a year.
“Allergy is a major risk factor for asthma. And, the awareness of allergy [in most parts of Asia] has been pretty low. So, the understanding that this is the triggering factor has always taken a back seat, as compared to the Western world,” cites World Allergy Organization treasurer Dr. Ruby Pawankar of the Nippon Medical School in Tokyo.
Some 50 percent of the people with allergies and asthma live in developing countries and most don’t have access to anti-allergy medications. Even if the ailment is properly diagnosed, hard-up or non-health-insured patients often don’t get the needed treatments, according to Pawankar.
Adopting modern antiseptic lifestyles, rapid urbanization, and even climate change are among some of the factors being blamed for an alarming rise in asthma in Asia.
Rise in eczema
Meanwhile, a 2006 The Lancet report points to an 8.9-percent rise in eczema or atopic dermatitis among six- to sevenyear- olds in Singapore; 11.3 percent in South Korea, 6.7 percent in Taiwan, and 16.7 percent in Thailand.
Findings indicate that 60 to 70 percent of all allergies develop during infancy. Once an allergy sets in, there’s likelihood the child will be hounded by allergies for most of his life. Experts point up the vital need to breastfeed an infant for at least the first six months for long-term protection against allergies.
A report in the June 2002 edition of Archives of Disease in Childhood claims that kids who are overly hygienic appear to be at increased risk of developing wheezing–a symptom of asthma–and the allergy-related skin condition eczema.
The report notes that children with the highest degree of personal hygiene– those who washed their faces and hands more than five times per day, cleaned before meals, and bathed more than two times each day -were the most likely to develop eczema and wheezing between the ages of 30 and 42 months.
The relationship between hygiene and allergies spanned different hygiene levels. As the level of hygiene increased, so did the risk of developing eczema or wheezing, the report cites.
