What is asthma? It is said people have asthma when they become short of breadth, without any warning to the point of nearly suffocating. Several thousand people die from suffocation due to asthma every year. Sometimes the onset of asthma is associated with repeated dry coughs with each breadth. There is always an associated wheezing when exhaling, without an apparent infection in the lungs. Asthma affects more than seventeen million Americans, mostly children. I believe that asthma and allergies are the body's crisis calls for water. They denote a state of dehydration in the human body. They herald continuing degeneration of the body until other complications of dehydration get established and can cause early death.

My experience and research tell me that the body possesses a number of highly sophisticated emergency thirst signals. We need to be aware of these newly identified indicators of water shortage in our body. All you may need to do to cure some of your health problems is to drink water instead of other fluids.

Question: What has all this got to do with asthma?

Answer: Asthma and allergy - conditions mainly treated with different kinds of antihistamine medications - are important indicators of dehydration in the body. Histamine is an important neurotransmitter that primarily regulates the thirst mechanism, for increased water intake. It also establishes a system of rationing for the available water in the drought-stricken body. Histamine is a most noble element employed in drought management of the body. It is not the villain that we have been led to believe due to our limitation of knowledge about the human body.

In dehydration, histamine production and its activity increase greatly, and this generates the emergency thirst signals and indicators of the water rationing program that is taking place. Increased histamine release in the lungs cause spasms of the bronchioles, making them constrict. This natural spasmodic action of histamine on the bronchial tubes is part of the design of the body to conserve water that normally evaporates during breathing - the winter ‘steam'.

In dehydration, lung tissue becomes very vulnerable. The air sacs in the lungs have very thin walls and need water to keep them moist at all times. The constant flow of air through these sacs also evaporates the available water in the lining. Dehydration automatically reduces the amount of available water in these tissues and causes damage, unless the rate of the airflow is reduced. In essence, this is the rationale behind the blockage of airflow through the lungs in asthmatics. Histamine is responsible for cutting down the rate of airflow through the lungs. It causes constriction of the bronchioles that are attached to the air sacs. Histamine also stimulates the production of added amounts of thick and viscous mucus that partially plug the bronchioles and protect the lining of the bronchioles themselves. All these actions of histamine in dehydration are carried out to protect the delicate passageways of the body that are in direct contact with the outside air and could easily become dried up and parched if not protected.