You may recall a recent blog item I posted about some of the unhealthy and downright dangerous things parents do to protect their asthmatic kids from potential irritants. The study listed some 1,800 steps parents took to help their asthmatic children. Only half really work while the rest were unproven, unhelpful and, occasionally, harmful.

The common thread between both items: In many cases, at least one person who lived in the homes of these asthma sufferers was a smoker, which means this problem could have been easily preventable with a better understanding of the facts. This kind of ignorance fuels the quick fix mentality many physicians practice -- prescribing pharmaceuticals to cover up a problem but not actually treat it -- that can be deadly to your health and that of your family.

You don't need the temporary fixes most prescription drugs offer. In fact, there are some very simple changes you could make that will profoundly improve your ability to breathe.

1. Following my proven nutrition plan, described in my book, Total Health Program, is one of the first steps. Avoiding sugar, fruit juices, most grains and pasteurized dairy products is nearly always helpful. It is absolutely amazing how many people will have dramatic improvement and be able to stop most of their medications with this one simple step.

2. Replacing commercial milk with raw milk from grass-fed cows is also usually well tolerated and highly health promoting. There is simply no reason to ever drink or consume regular pasteurized milk products. They almost invariably will cause the asthma to worsen. The only acceptable milk products would be raw unpasteurized milk. That may seem impossible to get but there are two ways one can obtain it. The first is a cow share program. Once you find a dairy farmer just give him $10 to purchase a share of the cow. Now you can legally purchase the milk to consume as it is your cow and it is perfectly legal to drink raw milk from your own cow.

   The other option is to purchase the raw milk from the farmer in a frozen state. This is a legal loophole and works very well. It also allows you to store the milk for extended periods of time. Since it is relatively inconvenient for most of us to obtain raw milk, it makes it far more convenient to store the milk in the freezer. Non frozen raw milk is only good for about 1-2 weeks but frozen raw milk can be good for many months. Virtually none of the benefits of raw milk are lost when the milk is frozen.

3. Include enough long-chain omega-3 fats (DHA and EPA) from fish oils in your diet. In my experience, Carlson fish oil and cod liver oil is one of the most superior brands available as it conforms to the strictest guidelines for purity and freshness.

4. For more severe and resistant cases of asthma, allergy skin testing can be appropriate. Traditional allergy treatments are one of medicine's safer and better approaches, however it has great room for improvement. My experience with conventional allergy testing, whether done through the blood (RAST) or skin is that only 20 percent to 30 percent of patients do exceptionally well with it. It is also highly inconvenient, as patients need to go to the doctor's office every week for months or years. It clearly does not work for the majority of patients.

For the past several years, I have been using a much improved version of this testing, which is taught by the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, called . The success rate for this approach is in the 80 percent to 90 percent range and patients can receive their treatment at home.

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