Advice Offered About a Chronic Malady

Asthma: Stop Suffering, Start Living by M. Eric Gershwin MD and E. L. Klingelhofer Ph.D.: (Addison-Wesley: $10.95).

Asthma--appropriately described up by its Greek root “shortness of breath”--affects 100 million people worldwide and up to 14 million in this country, including the children of one of the authors and this reviewer. A chronic disease that often clears up during adolescence, asthma is seldom life threatening, but can be--unless properly treated--life-distorting.

M. Eric Gershwin, an allergist at the School of Medicine, UC Davis, and E. L. Klingelhofer, take a clinical approach to the cause and treatment of chronic asthma, stressing that attacks cause emotional problems, not vice versa.

Though they downplay the psychological element, they most skillfully cover the basic treatment of this disease, examining its genetic component (asthma definitely runs in families), allergic reactions to foods and pollens, as well as problems created by smoking, upper-respiratory infections and overly strenuous exercise.

Describing breathing exercises to both help control an attack and improve lung capacity, the authors, additionally, have written excellent chapters on the most current prescription and over-the-counter medications, pregnancy, travel and general home care. In the case of severe allergies, pets may have to be removed from the household, “one of the more melancholy chores of an allergist,” Gershwin sadly comments.

In separate appendixes, problem foods and those containing preservatives are charted, as are allergy centers, organizations and special summer camps so asthma “ceases to be the focal point of existence,” opening up “the possibility of normal life.”

In its practical here-and-now approach, this book will prove a godsend to asthmatics and those treating children afflicted with a disease that accounts for more lost school and work time than any other medical condition.