This article continues the discussion on asthma in children, with the focus on diet and Chinese herbs. Let us first recall how we defined asthma. It is a mixture of external influence (called “external wind”), internal phlegm (either hot or cold), and respiratory and digestive dysfunction. These, together with emotional tension, lead to spasm (called “internal wind”). Before we begin, a word is in order about this concept of “wind” in Oriental Medicine, and how it relates to immunity.
In general, wind refers to any sudden change that affects the body, either coming from the outside, or generated internally. On the outside, it means not only windiness that can carry pathogens and allergens on its wings, yet also sudden shifts in climate, like exiting a warm car into a cold winter day, or taking a plane from arid Arizona to sticky New Orleans. On the inside it often results from friction in the transition between emotions; this builds up heat and often shows as irritability, followed by the jerkiness of spasm as the extreme heat literally causes wind to swirl.
In both cases, the body’s defenses are left temporarily vulnerable. This is the origin of the ancient saying that wind is the instigator of a hundred diseases (meaning lots): it represents a window of opportunity in the normally patent flow of qi for pathogens to circulate. If, in addition to exposure to wind, the defenses themselves are clogged with phlegm, seared with heat, or frozen with cold, there is even greater invitation for trouble: where there is poor circulation, other kinds of unwanted things will circulate themselves. Finally, there can be, or may evolve, a true deficiency of defensive qi, related to Lung and digestive weakness, that leaves the body open to wind.
Now, as for the role of food in these processes, let us take a look at the typical American diet. The leading foods are wheat, animal flesh and fat, sugar, milk products, stimulant fluids, and salt. Apart from the despoiling effects of what we do to these foods (refine, domesticate, and chemically process), all are purely sweet, rich, and internally warming. This diet, at a stretch, is more suited to a hard-working adult Eskimo than to a school kid in the Poconos. It is an invention of modern society guided by placing the bulk of its value on feeling expansive, and getting there quickly; the irony is that it fails to satisfy those grand desires to the same extent that it tries.
The results of such a diet can be figured, and indeed are clearly evident. The over-nourishing and over-stimulating qualities lead directly to congestion and hyperactivity, while the lack of lighter, cooling, cleansing, and harmonizing fare prevents shedding of wastes, including stale thoughts and harbored emotions. In addition, this marked imbalance results in Organ dysfunctions, as some get more than they need and others less. The guts become overstuffed, hot, and encumbered, the lungs receive a turbid mixture of goo (phlegm), and the liver, as overseer, becomes quite disgruntled. This last effect accounts for all kinds of nervous dysfunction, including the spasms that define asthma, as well as chronic states of inflammation and irritability.
Next month, we shall eloborate on the trigger, or external wind, and how to change the recipe.