The #1 Asthma Symptom You’re Missing (It’s Not Wheezing!)

Asthma Partnership and Health Goals 0:00

African American Wellness Watch. Trusted information for us, by us. Dr. Mike Lenore and other experts from around the country and around world have the latest on how you and your family can get healthy and stay well. Black Doctor and the African American Wellness Project, we're taking on asthma. And we know this is in your wheelhouse. When we are talking about asthma and asthma-related illnesses for Black folks, and we were disproportionately impacted by it. So we will talk a little bit about it and help our audience coming together to overcome asthma, to find better treatments for ourselves and for our children.

First question is really, why have our organizations chosen to work together to improve asthma outcomes? Well, because I think we have power together. I mean, I thank that asthma is a passion of mine. And I will share with the audience, unfortunately, my first wife passed from asthma. So I was consistently always on it, and especially in urban inner cities. 30 million people have asthma, African-Americans, some of the most. African American women have the the highest mortality rates in African-American child, three times more likely to die from asthma.

My whole career has been trying to change those statistics. And I think we made some progress, but I we're falling backwards. I that the two of us together, certainly BDO, with its large reach and its commitment to the community in a lot of different ways, and the African American Wellness Project, because it's one of our priorities, formed a perfect partnership. We are not going to get these people to go to an emergency room this year, this winter. we're going to give them enough information for them to take care of their asthma, and they need to stay tuned to see what we want to try to do.

Well, amen to that. So let's give people some asthma basics. What's the main cause of asthma? Well the cause is a bunch of cells moving along and set up shop. And as they set up shop, they release these chemicals, which force their way to close down and it causes an inflammatory process in the lung. We've talked about inflammation with the knee and we talked to our information with various invariant with foods. last week, but inflammation is the process. A bunch of cells move in there, and that's what causes the problem.

Alot of things can trigger these cells, allergy, infection, jesta, some people just have it genetically. But it's an inflammatory process And how does asthma present and how do you classify it? Well, the most common presenting symptom of asthma, unlike what most people think, is that the wheezing and shortness of breath is chronic coughing.

Asthma Basics, Triggers, and Symptoms 2:50

Coughing without fever, coughing without other causes, or coughing with exercise. So coughing is the most common presenting symptom. And when you start wheezing, you have 70% airway obstruction. Even if you're wheezin' occasionally, that means you are significant amounts of asthma. Lots of Asthma occurs without whezing, and so chronic cough is most commonly presenting symptoms. Now you mentioned some of the symptoms, but what triggers those symptoms? What are some those triggers? Well, you look at it in a lot of different ways.

There are allergy symptoms that trigger it. And there's infection that triggers it, there are certain people with genetic situations that triggered the asthma. So there is a variety of things. What's good about that process though, is there a commonality of what you can do because the triggering of the symptoms means that you could treat the symptom in pretty much the same way. But I think that's the usually presenting symptom. Those are the things that trigger asthma. From an allergy perspective, it's pollens and non-pollens, grasses, trees, weeds, house dust, dog, animal, dander, and there are a bunch of irritants that I mean those are infection and things like that that can make people wheeze or cough.

So do patients with mild asthma, do they need to be managed or can they just live their day-to-day life without managing their asthma? Well, you might be surprised that there's people with a mild asthma that die the most. Every day in this country, 10 people die from asthma. And it's usually those people, with mild or moderate asthma, have the same mortality rates as those with very severe asthma because they're usually, when they do get symptomatic, they are not prepared to take care of them. All right, so let's talk about treatment.

We know that the big A word is albuterol. Is albuterone overutilized? Albuterol is not a treatment for asthma. It is a manager of symptoms. And those people who overuse albuterole tend to have worse outcomes. They're in the emergency room more, they die more often. So if you're using al butero, and God forbid, primatine mist, on a regular basis as your main management for Asthma, you are at greater risk. Those kids that I've had who have died from asthma had mild to moderate symptoms, where they got on the football field or track, When they got on a basketball court, they started to have symptoms.

They were not prepared. And those are the ones that died. Those people with severe asthma, They have everything. It got machines. Because you, me, their grandmother, everybody, when they get symptomatic. So they're less likely to get into the very severe process. But I think the thing, because you just occasionally have asthma that you're not at great risk. You are at risk and your children are in great risks if you don't manage it properly. So what about day-to-day medications and steroids? Well, I think the day to day medications really involve both appropriate use of albuterol and the maintenance medications.

The maintenance medication are generally what we call neocortical steroids. What they do is they sit in the surface of the lung and they stop this inflammation. And they're not absorbed systemically, so they don't cause the same problems in pregna zone as well. Any time you have exacerbations, That means any time you break through and you need Prednisone or you go to the emergency room, that's a sign that you better manage the process. Okay. And are there any new medications that people need to know about?

Asthma Treatment and New Biologics 6:32

We're going to make sure that everybody who looks at this program, looks a black doctor, who look at the African American wellness project knows about the new biologics. There are certain groups of medications called biologics, they are life-saving, especially for people with severe intractable asthma. What's so terrible is not terrible, but what's common is that African Americans don't get access to these drugs until very late in the game. But we are going to change that. Well, I'm looking forward to the continuation of this project.

And so I want everybody to keep on the lookout for we got more things coming. We've got a more Facebook lives, articles, more information coming out about how you can protect yourself and your family from the detrimental effects of asthma. Dr. Nor shared earlier. It can be life-taking. And so, you know, we always say when you can't breathe, nothing else matters. So we're going to make sure we all breathe. We're gonna have a series. Okay, I'm going talk to you about your asthma. Are we going offer opportunities for you to tell us about what's going on in your life and how your as was being treated?

We going give you as much information as we possibly can. is to cut the emergency room visits and hospitalizations of people that look at blackdoctor.org or the African-American wellness project in half. So we're gonna be on you. We're not gonna allow you to kind of sit around and just kind casually take bad medicines and then end up in the emergent with you and your children. we are determined, we gonna do a poll before we start to see who's been in emergency rooms, who has been at the hospital.

There gonna a be a pole and when we finish. And if we don't cut that in half, I'm going to cry. You don' want to see a grown man cry? I promise you, please. Follow the instructions. I've cried for the same reasons other grown men cry, but this time we're going be talking about answering. So look forward to our series of programs that are a combination or a collaboration between the African American Wellness Project and blackdoctor.org. We're gonna cut your visits to the emergency room and the hospital in half.

So you go outside, you tell your friends, your neighbor, and your grandmother that we are going to be on the case. And we expect you to join us as we try to make that happen. Now we're going take a quick break. When we come back, we'll be surprised by a few powerful foods that Mr. Dean has identified. I don't know where you have time to go get all these foods. You know, when I go to a grocery store, I try get a couple of things and get out of there. I'm trying to live. I gotta eat healthy. You gotta tell people about some of the foods that are more powerful than you think right after this break.

In 2007, DeAndre Gaines found himself dizzy with his heart pounding on my way to work one morning in. didn't feel right. Hours later, he woke up in an emergency room. They told me I was going having heart failure. DeAndre was 28 years old. He ended the day with a new pacemaker implanted in his heart. It was what you might call a bad day. Terrible. it wouldn't be the last of the bad days. Depression, continued health struggles and incarceration plagued him for several years. By 2020, his and this time his body were failing.

All of his organs were starting to fail. If he had not gotten to us, he probably wouldn't have made it. Let me see your equipment for you. Kimberly Vessels is DeAndre's heart failure nurse practitioner and part of the Norton Healthcare team that implanted Deandre with a VAD machine, which is essentially a mechanical heart. When people think about heart failure, they think of it as an older white male disease. It is for that population for the older White males, but we see younger African American males with this disease at age 43. DeAndre's life now depends on rechargeable 18 hour batteries.

If I leave the house, I have to put on battery packs. When I'm in the house, I have to plug myself into a wall unit. You know, that was a an adjustment of his own you know of not being able to get up and And go the way I want to go happy and spending as much time as he

Heart Failure Story and Warning Signs 10:50

can with his four kids Deandre and his medical team know time is part of the concern the average life expectancy 75 I Have to be able get you to 75 in some way or another and an artificial heart pump at the age of 40 is going to be difficult to get them to 75. Medically, DeAndre's next hope is for a heart transplant. But the hope of his current heart, both authentic and metal, is that others don't make the same mistake of ignoring the early warning signs of high blood pressure. Go get checked. Just go.

Doesn't matter what it's about. Self-care is the best care. And get yourself checked out. Absolutely. Okay, Ellis. All right. We're glad to be back, Mr. Dane. What are these foods you've been hiding from us? So, you know what, Doc? Admittedly, in full disclosure, when I was doing the research for this portion of the show, I was like, okay, I'm so excited to find out about these foods, but I already knew about this foods. I didn't know how good they were for the body. So these are three foods that you've already known about.

They may be in your house right now but you don't how they are for you. The first one is Brussels sprouts. Yes, Brussels sprout. There's a little many cabbages that I did not know that Brussels spouts are the cancer fighting Jedi. That's what they even described. One compound is called It causes cancer cells to self destruct. Think about that. It is a cancer fighting food. And many people, you can get Brussels sprouts anywhere. They're very, very common in your local grocery store, but they are very good for you.

So Brussels spouts, Cancer Fighting Jedi. Just remember that The second food is mushrooms, all types of mushrooms. And mushrooms improve the immune system. They reduce the risk of colon, stomach, and prostate cancer. So we talk about mushrooms right? Just mushrooms that you cut on your salad and you put in your food. We could, they also have been shown in some studies in China to reduce breast cancer, the risks of breast cancers by up to 64%. and they're very high in

Powerful Foods for Better Health 13:10

vitamin D, which also has been shown to improve our immune system. So we're talking about mushrooms. You may not like them, some people it's a texture thing, but mushrooms are very, very good for you. And finally, onions, right? Onions, those things, they're in a lot of different foods. We eat them raw, we eat em cooked. But that crying compound, you know when you cut onions and it makes you cry, that cryin' compound is shown to help prevent strokes from happening. Onion are also a natural blood thinner.

It's high in vitamin C and they provide calcium, iron, folic acid, and dietary fiber, all in that little onion. And it can also help prevent stomach ulcers. Now, if you have a stomach, ulcer, it, can't reverse it. But if don't have one, eating onions can help Stomach ulcers. So those three foods, Brussels sprouts, mushrooms and ions are very, very good in terms of fighting cancer, boosting your immune system, preventing strokes. They're high in vitamin D, vitamin C and other natural ingredients really just will help your body.

We're talking about eating healthy. please include Brussels sprouts, mushrooms, and onions. But also please remember, we can't cook them down all the way down and all this fats and stuff. If we do that too much, it will change the composition of the vegetables. So try to eat them in as close to their natural state as possible. if you're going to cook him, just a slight cooking, maybe a roasting, a little olive oil, those things like that will help keep him in a more natural Well, you know, that, I mean, it means I have to change my diet.

I never did like Brussels sprouts, although it's... I don't either. They smell like feet to me. And the mushrooms you're talking about, not the mushroom I remember from my youth. uh and so but I'm much more changed and I do use those and i love onions but i want people to take uh take this seriously because you know we've been giving you a lot of dietary tips and what happens is that if you change your diet you, change, your lifespan you. change the quality of your life and, so consequently, we appreciate you going to the grocery store Mr.

Dean every week and finding these foods and people Well, you know, we always talk about food as medicine and that's kind of been a cliche, but that is the reality. We understand that eating a more plant-based diet will help reduce our cancer risk. It will lower our blood sugar. If we have diabetes, it can lower blood pressure. Our diet is really what's driving our poor health. There is a genetic component to health, but what we eat and how little or how much we exercise, how literal how we sleep, and and we protect our mental health goes a long way into helping reduce those risks of developing these diseases and disorders that we've been talking about.