Asthma drugs and weight gain:

A while back someone pondered as to why some asthma drugs cause weight gain.
I am speaking both from experience and from doing a bit of sleuthing myself.
I was never asthmatic in childhood, but seemed to develop allergies in my late twenties, such as a mild “hay fever” in the spring or when surrounded by too many animals. One or two pets never bothered me.
But I did go through some pretty stressful times back then. A painful divorce from a very abusive relationship to an alcoholic. Estrangement from the church I was attending back then as a result of making that descision. Losing what I thought were long time friends. A radical change in my geography when I went from a low altitude beach city to living in the mountains at about 8,000 feet.
(I loved that!) I think that Ray Audette was on the right track when he talked about immune responses.
We can go for years from childhood on, eating the S.A.D. diet, swilling all those foreign proteins and worse with no apparent ill effects, and then all of a sudden, things start happening, BAD things. Diseases like Lupus, MS, Cancer, Diabetes, Arthritis, and in my case, severe upper respiratory problems like asthma. I think our bodies are these magnificent companions that continue to take a beating until we just wear out the fail safe mechanisms : endocrine, nervous, immune systems. It’s like a cascade effect.
A lot of diseases particularly the ones I’ve studied that seem to affect more women and some men are like the systems either over reacting (stuck on “GO”) or under reacting (worn out)
Mind you this is just speculation on my part. I’m not a med student or doctor.
But I think that it’s like this:
Diabetes: worn out pancreas
Lupus: over active immune system attacking your own body
Chronic Fatigue: again over reaction of immune (anti-histemic) system
Asthma: over active anti-histemic system and I also think some hyperventilation.
In the case of things like asthma, ms, or lupus, steroids like prednesone are regularly administered in the more severe cases. I have a prescription for it in case of a severe episode.
Milder steroids are also used like flovent or the various nasal steroids like beconase or others.
Steroids (at least in women) cause weight gain, sometimes a lot of weight!, puffiness, water retention, and other not so nice side effects like oteoporosis later (and even sometimes earlier) in life. I think that the reason more women are having these problems is a complex and not easily solved one, but I think that our particular way of reacting to life’s stresses has something to do with it.
When I’m strictly paleo, and yes even I fall off the wagon from time to time, as I’ve said before, I have few or NO symptoms of asthma. I’ve noticed that when I get back to it after falling off, within less than a week the symptoms go away.
Weight gain was a painful shock (I gained 50! Pounds) when I was put on steroids. And this was with no change or increase of my then “healthy”? low fat almost vegan diet.
I was then told by doctors that this was unfortunate but wouldn’t I rather be able to breathe?
The current medical industry is sometimes a cruel purveyor of the incredibly lucrative pharmaceutical industry. It’s easier to prescribe a pill than to get to the root of the problem.
But then as most of us must know from experience both with ourselves and with our friends and family, how hard it is to change lifelong and culturally entrenched practices of eating and living.
Illness is quite a motivator.

Hope this wasn’t too long winded!

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