What Is Asthma?
Over time, these repeated episodes will cause lung damage. Damaged lung tissue leads to:
Difficulty breathing
An inability to tolerate exercise
Frequent episodes of symptoms
Worsening overall symptoms
This cycle only helps the condition progress further.
Roughly 300 million people worldwide have asthma (Global Initiative for Asthma, 2025, p. 15). This condition is common in Blacks and mixed-race individuals. Male children and teens are most frequently affected. Although rare, adult-onset asthma commonly is seen in females (Allergy and Asthma Network, 2026).
You may develop symptoms after exposure to certain triggers. These triggers include exercise, a viral illness, or environmental exposures. When this occurs, your provider may want to check for asthma.
Types of Asthma
Your doctor may label your asthma based on the frequency and severity of your symptoms. Asthma may be classified as intermittent when symptoms are occasional. If you have continued symptoms, you are considered to have persistent asthma. This will be classified based on your frequency of symptoms and severity as mild, moderate, or severe.
Asthma may be further broken down by phenotypes. These are the characteristics associated with asthma—including:
Allergic
Non-allergic
Cough variant or non-cough variant
Asthma with obesity
Asthma with persistent airflow limitation
Adult-onset
(Global Initiative for Asthma, 2025, p. 24)
Doctors use these labels to guide the treatment and management of your condition.
What Causes Asthma
The cause of asthma remains unclear. Developing asthma is influenced by certain genetic factors and immune system problems. Damaged lung tissue from environmental triggers or viral illness also makes asthma likely.
This is because damaged lung tissue is hyper-responsive to triggers. With even small exposures to triggers, your lungs will react and bring on symptoms. The more frequent and severe these reactions, the more damage your lungs have. This leads to long-term lung tissue damage and a progressive asthma condition.
The gut-lung axis is a complex pathway between your intestines and your lungs. You have healthy bacteria, fungi and other microorganisms that live in your gut. This microbiota helps to regulate your whole body's immune responses. Gut dysbiosis is an imbalance of these healthy gut microbes.
An interruption in this pathway causes increased allergic asthma episodes (Lv et al., 2025). When the pathway is impaired, you become more sensitive to allergic triggers. Also, your body doesn't regulate inflammation, including in the lungs.
Who Is At Risk
You're more likely to develop asthma if you have any of the following:
Genetic risk factors such as a parent or sibling with asthma
A personal history of obesity, allergies, or viral respiratory illness
Known environmental trigger exposure to chemical irritants, cigarette smoke, or pollution
Hidden food sensitivities are another risk for asthma. A sensitivity isn't the same as a food allergy. Sensitivities cause inflammation and may have symptoms you don't even notice.
Common sensitivities include: sulfites, red or yellow dyes, and preservatives. Food allergies are often identified as part of an asthma diagnosis. But, sensitivities are often missed.
There's an increased risk of asthma-related death when healthcare access is limited. This is common in rural areas or for those living in poverty (American Lung Association, 2026).
What Are The Symptoms
Asthma symptoms come from your body's reaction to a trigger exposure. After an exposure, your lungs produce increased mucus and your airways narrow. As a result, you may have the following symptoms:
Cough, persistent or worse at night
Wheezing
Shortness of breath
Chest tightness
Clear phlegm production
Increased anxiety during an episode
Asthmatics often describe their symptoms as feeling like a “fish out of water”. Or they might say they can’t take a deep breath.
These symptoms don’t go away with trigger removal or rest. Instead they require medical intervention with medications like inhalers to relieve symptoms.
How Is Asthma Diagnosed
To diagnose asthma your doctor will take your history and perform additional testing.
Pulmonary Function Tests
Doctors use pulmonary function tests to look at lung function. Spirometry is a pulmonary function test used to help diagnose asthma. This test shows how well you’re breathing in and releasing air from your lungs. Spirometry can show when you have a chronic obstruction. It will also measure its severity (Allergy and Asthma Foundation of America, 2024).
Spirometry interpretation needs to be performed by a doctor or other health care provider. It’s just a quick picture of your lung health. A normal spirometry result can be obtained in asthmatics between exacerbations. The spirometry result may then become positive when they’re exposed to a trigger.
Medication Trial
Bronchodilators are often administered as part of spirometry testing. These are inhaled medicines that help open the airways. Comparing spirometry results before and after taking medicine helps with the diagnosis. An improved spirometry result points to an asthma diagnosis.
Children often can't perform spirometry well. Instead, clinicians may take bronchodilator effectiveness alone as an indication for asthma.
Patient History
Your provider will get a detailed personal and family history to diagnose asthma.
Key components of your personal and family history may include:
Family history of allergies, eczema, or asthma
Personal history of allergies or eczema
Lifestyle habits including smoking, occupation, and exercise
Any physical symptoms that you’re experiencing
If you wake up coughing or short of breath at night
Any recent viral illness
History of respiratory symptoms after known trigger exposures
These important details help to narrow down what risk factors you have for asthma.
Other Conditions to Consider
Asthma can be mistaken for other conditions with similar symptoms.
Some common conditions with similar symptoms to asthma include:
Acid reflux
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Viral respiratory illnesses
Nasal polyps (Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, 2024)
Ruling out similar conditions can delay or complicate initial diagnosis,
How Is Asthma Treated With Regenerative Therapies
Common treatments for asthma include some combination of inhalers, corticosteroids, and biologics. Adding regenerative therapies may help to better manage your asthma.
Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback
Heart Rate Variability (HRV) measures your body's involuntary reaction to stressors. To get this measurement doctors look at your resting heart rate when exposed to a trigger. A high HRV indicates your body’s ability to adapt to stressors. A low HRV can reveal a risk of heart disease or death (Fournie et al., 2021, p.2).
In short, your heart rate should increase in response to triggers. Once you have adapted to the stress, it returns to normal. Low HRV indicates cardiac stress or impaired recovery from a trigger.
HRV Biofeedback uses breathing techniques to help retrain the nervous system. The goal of this therapy is to increase HRV and improve emotional self-regulation.
In previous clinical trials, HRV biofeedback has reduced the frequency of inhaler use. More clinical studies are underway to support HRV biofeedback's use in asthma.
Red Light Therapy
Red light therapy (RLT) uses specific wavelengths of light to get a reaction from your cells. RLT is non-invasive meaning the treatment is from outside of your body. RLT has been shown to improve immune responses in those with asthma. Also, asthmatics using RLT have reduced inflammation and better overall lung function (Spectra Red Light LLC, 2023).
Mesenchymal Stem Cell Therapy
Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) are adult stem cells. MSC are found in bone marrow, fat (adipose tissue), and umbilical cord tissue (Cona, 2024)
MSC are put in the body through your veins. Once inside, your body will signal for these cells to become different types of cells. For asthma patients, MSC therapy shows potential to:
Control immune system activity, by reducing hyper-reactivity to triggers
Reduce inflammation, and long-term effects of asthma on the lungs including airway obstruction
Promote tissue repair, helping to reverse damage from this chronic inflammatory disease
Platelet-Rich Plasma Therapy
Platelet-rich plasma therapy, or PRP, is a concentrated form of blood. PRP is known for its potential to support tissue repair and regeneration. PRP may help support the repair of damaged lung tissue in asthmatic patients.
PRP comes from a standard blood draw—either from the patient or a donor. After separating out red blood cells, platelet-rich plasma remains. This plasma is then administered to the patient via nebulizer (Knight & Kacker, 2023).
CAR Treg Cell Therapy
Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) treg cells are white blood cells known as T cells. T cells function in your immune system to control your body's immune response to a trigger. After infection, these cells help reduce inflammation.
Research on this treatment is in the preclinical phase. Results show promise for targeted therapy towards specific allergens in allergy-induced asthma. The infection risk of this therapy is lower than others (Boardman & Levings, 2022).
Nutritional Interventions
There are a few nutritional supplements that can be used to reduce asthma symptoms. These supplements are not cures or meant to be used by themselves. Magnesium can help dilate constricted airways. Omega-3s, and antioxidants target inflammation. There's a lot of data for the use of these supplements for asthma, even in children.
Conventional treatments remain the standard of care for young asthmatics. Clinical trials are under way to find support for targeted biologics in this age group. Studies in regenerative medicine have focused on adults, not children. Nutritional supplements are well supported for children as complementary therapies. More research needs to be done on other regenerative methods to support their use in children.
What Are Possible Complications
During an episode, you likely will need to take an inhaler. Inhaled bronchodilators help to open the airways and provide relief of symptoms. Asthma can be life-threatening and deadly if not treated quickly.
Having asthma is associated with poor quality of life. Symptoms may keep you from playing sports or participating in your favorite hobbies. You may miss a lot of work or school due to episodes. Even when you attend work or school, you may have poor performance in those settings. In some cases, this poor quality of life may lead to depression.
Can Asthma Be Prevented
We can't prevent asthma but we can control it. By identifying triggers and reducing symptom frequency we can manage your asthma condition. When asthma is well-controlled there are fewer episodes of inflammation and symptoms. This allows for better quality of life for the asthmatic. Also, good asthma control lowers your risk of long-term effects from lung damage.
Takeaway
Conventional treatments are still the top choice for managing asthma. Sometimes medications just aren't enough. Adding a regenerative medicine approach may result in overall better asthma management.
Speak with a regenerative medicine provider about what complementary treatments may benefit you.
