Asthma (pronounced AZ-muh) is defined in Essential Allergy, by Niels Mygind, Ronald Dahl, Soren Pedersen and Kristian Thestrup-Pedersen 2nd edition as :
A lung disease characterised by: 1, variable and reversible airway obstruction; 2, airway inflammation; and 3, bronchial hyper-responsiveness.
Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease that makes airways (bronchial tubes) particularly sensitive to irritants, and this is characterized by difficulty in breathing.
Asthma is a highly ranked chronic health condition in adults in most western countries, and it is the leading chronic illness of children.
Asthma cannot be cured, but for most patients it can be controlled so that they have only minimal and infrequent symptoms and they can live an active life.