INHALED STEROIDS COULD CONTRIBUTE TO CATARACTS

1. I should live so long!
2. I'm not female,
3. It's a 20 minute operation.

Pete

"Dr. Jai Maharaj" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Inhaled Steroids Could Contribute to Cataracts

By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter
Thursday, September 18, 2003

Thursday, Sept. 18 (HealthDayNews) - Researchers say they
have preliminary evidence that long-term use of inhaled
steroids for asthma may contribute to the formation of
cataracts.

The news, reported in the Sept. 20 issue of the British
Journal of Ophthalmology, is not entirely new. And some
experts are divided over the risk posed by steroids.

"Steroids administered systemically are well known to
cause cataracts," says Dr. Richard Bensinger, a spokesman
for the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

Dr. Robert Cykiert, a clinical associate professor at New
York University School of Medicine, says, "There have
been reports going back two to three years associating
inhaled steroids for patients who have asthma and
cataracts. The thing is, it's very rare. I've seen
thousands of patients who have taken inhaled steroids for
asthma and, of those I've had maybe two that have mild
cataracts."

Inhaled steroids are widely prescribed for asthma and
other respiratory problems, including allergies.
Cataracts are the number one cause of impaired vision and
blindness in the world.

The authors of the new study used data from the United
Kingdom's General Practice Research Database, which has
complete prescribing and diagnostic information for
almost 1.5 million patients in England and Wales.

All told, 15,479 people with cataracts and 15,479 people
without this condition were included in the study. The
average age of the participants was 75 years old and
about two-thirds were women.

In the group with cataracts, 11.4 percent had been
prescribed inhaled steroids, versus 7.6 percent of those
without cataracts.

The risk seemed to increase with higher dosages and long-
term use. People who took up to 400 micrograms per day
apparently had no increased risk, but those taking doses
higher than 1,600 micrograms per day had a 70 percent
increased risk.

For many people who need inhaled steroids, this may come
down to a choice between two illnesses.

"Doctors describe steroids as a wonderful awful drug,"
Bensinger says. "The effects are wonderful. They're
absolutely critical to the practice of medicine, but they
have a lot of undesirable effects."

Cataracts are one of those effects, but it's also one of
the most treatable conditions around. "Treatments are
extraordinarily successful," Bensinger says. "It's not a
big deal to go through. It's almost always local
anesthetic, so it's not to be feared."

Without steroids, some people with asthma may not live
long enough to develop cataracts, he adds.

There are also ways to limit absorption of steroids in
the body, something which is not mentioned in the study.

"We have patients wash out their mouth or brush their
teeth after using steroids to limit systemic absorption,"
says Dr. Robert Giusti, director of the Cystic Fibrosis
Center at Long Island College Hospital in New York City.
There are also second-generation inhaled steroids that
are cleared by the liver. The study seems to have looked
at earlier drugs that do not have this advantage, Giusti
adds.

If nothing else, the study seems to be an argument for
taking the lowest dose possible for the shortest time
possible.

"I have no doubt in my mind [that inhaled steroids lead
to cataracts] from a clinical practice," says Dr. Rajiv
Luthra, an ophthalmologist and epidemiologist at the
Ochsner Clinic Foundation in New Orleans. "If it's taken
on a constant basis, which is every day or every other
day for months to years, it will cause a problem."

More information

The National Eye Institute has more information on
cataracts.

http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/hsn/hl_hsn/storytext/SIG=03vbcq/*http://www.nei.nih.gov/health/cataract/cataract_facts.htm

Quoted message said:

The Asthma Society of Canada has more on inhaled steroids and asthma.

http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/hsn/hl_hsn/storytext/SIG=cjji3g/*http://www.asthma.ca/adults/treatment/steroids.php

Quoted message said:

Read the complete news at:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=97&ncid=1422&e=10&u=/hsn/20030919/hl_hsn/inhaledsteroidscouldcontributetocataracts

Quoted message said:

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Om Shanti

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Dr. Jai Maharaj said:

Inhaled Steroids Could Contribute to Cataracts

.....

If your agenda is that Indian pranayam (yog) is better than western
methods of treating asthma, I'd guess you are right.

1) General unsoundness of orthodox asthma treatment.

As anybody can see from a Google search with the words
"cause of asthma" known OR unknown
the cause is unknown to western medicine. The frequently repeated
statement that the cause is inflammation of the airways and that this
should be treated with steroid spray etc. is only a working hypothesis.
This means that western medicine is an experiment as regards asthma.
Furthermore it is often proclaimed that asthma drugs enable asthmatics
to do sport. This is of course not wrong in principle, but the fact
that up to 80% of athletes in some disciplines such as cross country
skiing and the Tour de France means that the word asthma is being used
with two different meanings, because one would expect only around 10% at
the most of athletes to really have asthma. Bottom line is that the
word asthma is used in an argument enabling athletes to dope themselves
with asthma drugs.

All this should call for caution about the activities of doctors and
asthma drug makers. It is not a question of getting the "best possible
medical advice" but of a bit of common sense.

2) Ethnomedicine.

In the East (pranayam, TCM) slightly obstructing an inhale is
recognized as a beneficial exercise, think of nada sodhanna (alternate
nostril breathing) and ujjayi (oceanic breathing). This is admittedly
not generally recommended as a cure for asthma, but probably if such an
attitude to breathing is widespread, asthma would be unlikely to occur
in the first place, because breathing would be healthy. As
"representional tools" the chakras seem to scientific and almost common
sense.

3) Defective breathing exercises in the West.

Generally (it seems) the all-important diaphragmatic breathing, which
generally accepted as effective against asthma, is taught by lying down
and putting one hand on the chest and the other on the abdomen and then
breathing so as to minimize chest movement and maximize abdomen
movement. See http://www.ohiou.edu/isarp/conf_02/papr_4.htm , page 10
on "belly puffing". This practice would of course tend to prove in a
circular argement to western doctors that breathing exercises are
non-specific, and more like a massage. Authentic pranayam is not taught
in this manner.

4) Wrong beliefs about nose function in the West.

Although recent research shows the physiological effects of a sniff
maneuver in stimulating the diaphragm and producing a deep breath, the
standard belief among western physicians is that the resistance in the
nose should only that due to "warming, humidifying and filtering the
air". As a result operations on the nose may lead to there being an
abnormally low resistance and a life of serious disease. The popular
error about nose resistance being minimal is abused to produce so many
iatrogenic effects.

5) Beneficial effects of "SIMT" (specific inspiratory muscle training)
and certain incentive spirometers.

SIMT is shown to have beneficial effect on asthma (do a Google search
with the words: inspiratory training). There are various manufacturers
of devices in the field. Patent specifications speak of using incnetive
spirometers offering an adjustable resistance on an inhale to inflate
the lungs and prevent atelectasis. This would imply that the SIMT
devices would have the same effect and might well teach an asthmatic to
rely on natural nose or throat resistance to avoid being short of breath
owing to air trapping (comparable to atelectasis) and to overcome
bronchospasm by natural means. Research on SIMT does state that the
resistance due to bronchospasm is to be overcome by strengthening
inspiratory muscles. This possibility is never mentioned in the
apparently so comprehensive material produced for patients from the
various orthodox asthma organizations and the pharmaceuticals industry.

It therefore seems quite clear that nose resistance plays a vital role
for inflating the lungs, although of course we normally breathe at rest
or during exertion with minimized resistance.

6) Practical suggestions avoiding asthma drugs.

I would therefore strongly suggest to those plagued by any sort of
unnatural shortness of breath due to a functional disorder and not due
an infectious disease or cancer to try out an SIMT device; or more
simply and perhaps more effectively to try the following:

Simply put a finger into your mouth between your teeth and lips to
leave a gap and then breathing in the this gap so that your cheeks are
pulled in a bit. There may then well be the feeling that the gap is
somehow directly wired with the action of your diaphragm. The smaller
the gap, the more powerful the diaphragm action - a bit like the effect
of a reliever spray in some cases. This "pursed lips inhale" may in some
respects be better than using an SIMT device, since it is easy to vary
the gap and therefore more sensitively control the diaphragm. Regards,
Richard Friedel

On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 10:31:20 +0200, Richard Friedel
<[email hidden]> wrote:

Oh, isn't this the very same Richard Friedel, who fell flat on his
nose in de.alt.naturheilkunde... ?

Aribert Deckers
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