Cockroaches

The second most leading cause of asthma in children

source: Partners Healthcare; Asthma Center

For many people the mere mention of the word “roach” makes one’s hair stand on edge. We associate these small insects with indoor dirt and decay, and we know how hard it can be to rid one’s home of an infestation of roaches once they settle in. But roaches are a fact of modern life. For some of us, exposure to roaches is an important cause of our asthma. For all of us, an important lesson can be learned from understanding the emerging information about the relationship between cockroach exposure and asthma. Cockroaches are a fact of modern life – and for some, an important cause of asthma.

Some people are born with the tendency to make allergic responses. Others seem to acquire the tendency along the way as they grow older. Most people with asthma have the tendency to make allergic responses in their bronchial tubes to things that we breath in.

It turns out that excrement and debris from decomposing cockroach bodies are of just the right size to be lifted into the air, breathed onto the bronchial tubes, and recognized by the immune system — in certain people — as a signal to make an allergic reaction. As you know, the allergic reaction in the bronchial tubes is asthma.

Recently, a major, federally-funded research project looked for allergy producing substances in the homes of several hundred children with asthma living in several major cities across the United States. Specifically, they measured the amount of cat, dust mite, and cockroach allergen in the bedrooms of these children aged 4 to 9 years. The results were quite striking.