New Asthma Statistics for South Carolina

New statistics on asthma in South Carolina and the U.S. was just published by SC DHEC. Key themes in the document were:
1. The number of people diagnosed with asthma and the amount of money spent on asthma has more than tripled since 1990.
In South Carolina:
2. Asthma and related conditions are by far the number cause of hospitalizations in South Carolina. That's even excluding pneumonia, number 5, which is frequently diagnosed in place of asthma.
3. 62 people died from asthma in 2006.
4. About 10% of middle school and high school children have active asthma. About 20% have been told they had asthma in their past.
5. Data for the past 10 years show a definite pattern of: a rise in hospital and emergency discharges in the fall, dropping during the winter, rising again through the spring though not as high as the fall, then falling during the summer but never to zero. This agrees with my own analysis of the data. I'll be submitting this in a medical journal in the near future.

Asthma can be prevented. People with asthma can live normal lives. How? Tightly control the inflammation of asthma, have a good action plan, get regular aerobic exercise, and eat low fat foods.