What is bronchitis?
Bronchitis is swelling that occurs on the lining of your bronchial tubes that play a significant role in taking air back and forth from your lungs. This can either be acute or chronic. The bronchitis symptoms include coughing, mucus production, feeling tired, difficulty breathing, and fever.
What are the causes of bronchitis?
Acute bronchitis: typically occurs due to an infection, especially viral infection. Acute bronchitis can be triggered if your immune system is not robust, if conditions continue to reoccur within short periods, or if the disease exists over a long period. However, it can also occur due to pollutants or irritants in the air that you may have been exposed to for a short period.
Chronic bronchitis: this evolves over some time. Usually, the bronchi are injured due to inflammation by certain things that can trigger it. This includes inhaling any chemical that may cause swelling. This swelling persists and grows over time, leading to chronic bronchitis. Smoking plays a crucial role in it because it acts as a triggering irritant for bronchitis.
Genetics: although there is no concrete evidence that bronchitis is linked to genetics. However, some studies show that chronic bronchitis can be a disease that runs within the family.
Cardiovascular: this does not cause bronchitis to occur; however, its symptoms can make an already existing bronchitis much worse than it started with. Cardiovascular symptoms include experiencing shortness of breath and heart failure. This can cause your bronchitis to become worse over time.
What are the risk factors of bronchitis?
Smoking: Smoking is one of the critical reasons for chronic bronchitis. This is because smoking causes the bronchi to become inflammatory which can cause immense damage.
Pollution: living or working in an area with pollution can also be a leading cause of bronchitis. This is because there are chemicals within the factories in that environment, which can damage health. Due to this, studies have shown that individuals who live in an urban environment are more likely to get bronchitis than those who do not live there. This is because the city’s people are more likely to be exposed to pollution and chemical inhalants, which can become hazardous for health.
Hygiene: To avoid acute bronchitis, keeping good hygiene is extremely important. This is because acute bronchitis mainly occurs due to infections. Prevention can occur by consistently washing your hands and staying away from people who are coughing or sneezing to lower the chance of getting infected from them.
Therefore,
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