What causes respiratory diseases

The core cause of most respiratory diseases is pathogen invasion and damage to the own respiratory barrier. A few are caused by physical and chemical stimulation, genetic or autoimmune disorders, foreign body stuck and other reasons.

The 28-year-old Internet practitioner who received the consultation last week had only slept 4 hours a day for a week to catch up on projects. He went to the ski resort with friends for an afternoon on the weekend. When he came back, he coughed so hard that he couldn't sleep. He also had a fever of 39 degrees. It was found that he was infected with influenza virus combined with Mycoplasma pneumoniae. To put it bluntly, staying up late continuously wears down the local immune defense line of the respiratory tract. Ski resorts are crowded with people and the virus load is high. When the cold wind blows, the blood vessels of the nasal mucosa shrink. The movement of cilia originally responsible for cleaning pathogens slows down by half. Viruses and mycoplasma can easily break through the defense.

Don’t think that all respiratory diseases are caused by germs. I have met many patients who have a history of smoking for many years, or who have worked in furniture factories or mines for a long time. They have neither been infected with viruses nor exposed to allergens. They just cough and produce phlegm all year round, and they wheeze after climbing two floors. They have been diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or pneumoconiosis. This means that long-term smoke and dust repeatedly irritate the airway, "burning" the cilia of the airway that were originally like a small broom. Secretions and foreign matter that cannot be discharged are blocked in the airway for a long time, which slowly develops into chronic inflammation and even irreversible airway stenosis.

There used to be a lot of quarrels on the Internet about "Whether cold air can directly cause a cold", but the academic community currently has no completely unified conclusion. The traditional view is that cold air only reduces the resistance of the respiratory tract, allowing pathogens that originally lurked in the respiratory tract to take advantage of it. In recent years, new research has found that low temperature itself will directly inhibit the immune response of the upper respiratory tract. Even if there are no pathogenic pathogens in the environment, it may induce local non-infectious inflammation. Many people have nasal congestion and sore throats when they breathe cold wind. Routine blood tests and infection indicators are all normal. This is the reason.

There are also some recurring respiratory problems that are very hidden. Last month, a 4-year-old child coughed continuously for more than two months. He took a lot of antibiotics and cough medicines to no avail. Finally, after a fiberoptic bronchoscopy, it was discovered that the melon seed shell he choked on half a month ago was stuck in the bronchus of the lower lobe of the right lung. The foreign body repeatedly stimulated the surrounding tissue to grow granulomas, which led to repeated inflammation. If the root cause of this situation is not found, no matter how much medicine is used, it will be useless.

In fact, the respiratory tract is one of the most frequent lines of defense between our body and the outside world. To put it bluntly, any factor that can break this line of defense may induce respiratory diseases. Commonly mentioned precautions such as staying up late, wearing masks, and staying away from second-hand smoke are essentially "reinforcement" of this line of defense.