The death rate for children 19 years and younger increased by 78 percent between 1980 and 1993. Certain factors indicate that many asthma-related deaths and hospitalizations are preventable when asthma is properly managed. For instance, people with asthma need to avoid environmental factors that make asthma worse, recognize early warning signs of worsening asthma, recognize the severity of an asthma episode, take appropriate medications as prescribed, and seek prompt medical help when problems occur. An allergy is a specific reaction to a normally harmless substance, one that does not bother most people. Allergic people often are sensitive to more than one substance.
Allergens enter the body in one of three ways.
Medicines that can cause allergic reactions are injected or ingested. More than half of all allergy sufferers fails to recognize their symptoms at first, falsely believing they have a cold or the flu. An estimated 50 to 60 million Americans. About one of every five adults and children suffer from allergies, including allergic asthma. Allergies are the sixth leading cause of chronic disease in the United States.