A Letter to Michelle Obama and Friends

First Daughter Malia Obama has asthma and allergies. First Lady Michelle Obama is an advocate for her daughter and all those with asthma. This letter is written to everyone connected to or concerned by asthma. Much has been said about pollen, dust mites, dogs, cats and air cleaners. Not so much about the oxides of sulfur. May I draw your attention to sulfites and sulfur dioxide.

It is generally acknowledged that 5% of asthma attacks are caused by sulfur dioxide or sulfite preservatives. Yet this percentage is even higher if you widen your focus beyond the actual triggers. In a 1998 study of asthmatics at Doai Memorial Hospital in Japan, 60% were found to be sensitive to sulfites, reacting with hives, skin problems and nasal congestion in addition to airway obstruction. Simply put, if you have asthma, you have better than even odds of improving your life by avoiding sulfites. That's a pretty powerful statement. It doesn't mean your asthma will improve, but other chronic conditions might.

How do you know if you are sensitive to sulfites? Just think about how you feel after eating strong sources of sulfite. The strongest are prescription sulfa drugs, American wine, white grape juice, dried apricots, instant potatoes and fastfood french fries. In addition to asthma, reactions include hives, rosacea, facial swelling, throat constriction, leg cramps, digestive upsets, headache and mood disorders. Also, many diseases are complicated by sulfites including chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and arthritis, irritable bowel syndrome, heart arrhythmia, irregular blood pressure, thyroid and liver problems. In short, just about anything in the medical dictionary can be a target for sulfites. The symptoms may be immediate or appear only after a day or two. If you are not sensitive to the strong sources of sulfite listed above, you don't have to worry. If you are sensitive, you can improve your life by avoiding sulfites.

This letter is written to Michelle Obama because it might help her daughter. If my mother had known about sulfites when I was a kid, I would have been saved 50 years of headache pain. Also, Mrs. Obama might be in a position to help reduce the levels of sulfite and sulfur dioxide in American food. If the sulfite problem of asthmatics is 12 times greater than generally reported (60% vs 5%), then the sulfite problem in the general population may be larger. The FDA usually cites 1% as the number of Americans who are sensitive to sulfites, meaning 3 million people. Multiply that number by 12 and you get 36 million. I know my sulfite condition would never be picked up in a medical survey, headaches that are delayed by 24 hours. And many of the people that write to my website describe problems that their doctors had failed to diagnose as sulfite sensitivity. Whether you are talking millions of people or tens of millions, it's a huge problem. Solving that problem could bring equally huge gains to America and perhaps the world.