It is often heard among asthma patients that coffee has a very good effect on their condition. Moreover, it is useful for asthma. Is it true? Let’s see.
What Is Asthma?
Asthma is a chronic disease that causes your respiratory tracts to become irritated, making it difficult to breathe. There is no cure for asthma. The very best way to handle asthma is to prevent triggers, take recommended medication to avoid symptoms, and be prepared to treat asthma episodes if they happen.
Typical symptoms of asthma are coughing, shortness of breath, wheezing and chest tightness. Asthma may result in a medical emergency situation. It is necessary to understand the signs of a serious asthma attack, and know how to treat it if it takes place.
Caffeine and Asthma
Caffeine is found in coffee, tea, soda pop drinks and cocoa. Caffeine is a drug that is very similar to theophylline. Theophylline is a bronchodilator drug that is required to open the airways in the lungs and therefore ease the symptoms of asthma, such as wheezing, coughing and breathlessness. Researchers are interested in learning whether caffeine has the same effect on the lungs as theophylline.
There are two major reasons why it is important to know if caffeine is a bronchodilator. The first is because it may be helpful for asthmatics to take caffeine in order to alleviate the symptoms of asthma. The 2nd is because consuming caffeine might affect the results of essential tests that identify how bad someone’s asthma is.
If caffeine serves as a bronchodilator and expands the air passages, then a patient who has actually consumed caffeine before taking the test would show a much better lead to a lung function test than they would have if they had actually not consumed any caffeine. The prospective issue with this is that if the test results are much better than expected doctors might recommend a lower dosage or a weaker drug than is truly required, which can lead to issues with asthma management.
This review carefully examines all the offered high-quality scientific trials on caffeine in asthma. This evaluation was carried out to find if individuals ought to prevent consuming caffeine before taking lung function tests.
This review found that even small amounts of caffeine can enhance lung function for approximately four hours. Therefore caffeine can impact the result of a lung function test (e.g. spirometry) and so caffeine should be avoided prior to taking a lung function test if possible, and previous caffeine intake must be recorded.
It is not understood if taking caffeine causes enhancements in symptoms. It may be that in order to enhance the symptoms of asthma, caffeine is needed in such large amounts that the drug’s unfavorable results would end up being a problem, so more research is required.
Another clinical trial took a look at the result of caffeine on breathed out nitric oxide levels and discovered that there is no significant impact, so it appears unlikely that patients would need to prevent caffeine prior to taking this type of test. However, this is the outcome of simply a single research study so more research study is needed to clarify this.
Is Coffee Good for Asthma?
Coffee only has a weak effect on asthma.
Drinking black coffee might help in dealing with breathlessness, as the caffeine in it can minimize fatigue in the muscles in an individual’s airway. It is also helpful for asthma patients as well.
Some research has found that caffeine’s results slightly improve the way the airway operates in people with asthma. This can be enough to make it much easier for them to take in air.
Nevertheless, it is essential to keep in mind that drinking too much coffee can increase an individual’s heart rate. It is best to enjoy caffeine consumption when trying this treatment, to make sure, not excessive is drunk.
