• Asthma is a chronic lung condition that can develop at any age.  Though it often starts in childhood, and is the most common chronic respiratory disease of children, there is also "adult onset asthma.
  
• Between fifteen and twenty million Americans, including about five million children, have asthma. 
  
• The effects of asthma on the individual vary from very mild to very severe. During a very severe asthma attack, a person may have so much trouble breathing that emergency treatment is needed. 
  
• According to the Canadian Lung Association there is a general trend of increased deaths and hospitalizations from asthma recorded in all the industrialized countries of the world.
  
• About five thousand people die from asthma annually, but virtually all these deaths are preventable. Asthma can be successfully controlled and symptoms prevented with medicines and other measures.
  
• There are two kinds of asthma, allergic and non-allergic. In allergic asthma, allergens (substances that people are allergic to) provoke the symptoms of asthma.  People with allergies are more likely to have asthma, and vice-versa.  In fact, hay fever (technically known as allergic rhinitis) is considered a risk factor for developing asthma.
  
• Although we do not yet have a cure for asthma, modern treatment methods, including drugs and other kinds of care, enable us to minimize and even prevent asthma symptoms and asthma attacks. 
  
• There are two types of asthma medication. Long-term control medicines are taken regularly over long periods of time to prevent or reduce asthma symptoms.  Quick relief or "rescue" offer immediate, short-term relief from asthma symptoms.

*Quick Facts have been reviewed by medical experts working with Second Opinion and are current as of September, 2005.