Hello! I have been a doctor for 21 years. My name is Georgy Olegovich Sapego. In this article, I'll talk about the causes of pneumonia and a new idea for beneficial lung microbes.
Pneumonia is an inflammation of the lungs and one of the leading causes of death worldwide.
Who gets pneumonia
The risk of getting pneumonia increases with age. People over 65 are three times more likely to get pneumonia than everyone else.
It is clear that if a person already has some kind of chronic lung disease such as asthma or bronchiectasis, then he is more likely to develop pneumonia.
In all situations where a person becomes weak, they will be more likely to get pneumonia. Various diseases weaken people:
- heart failure;
- stroke;
- diabetes;
- malnutrition and a bunch of other conditions.
Viruses
This is a separate story. The viruses themselves can cause pneumonia, or bacteria will attack against the background of a viral cold.
Respiratory problems
This is not a disease, but rather a failure in natural defense mechanisms. If a person constantly chokes on something, then with a high probability he will get pneumonia.
They choke on the contents of the stomach or just snot from the nose. This is enough to throw the infection into the lungs.
This happens in people after a stroke, when their protective reflexes in the throat do not work. The same can happen from anesthesia after surgery.
If there are seizures, epilepsy, or something similar, then all sorts of nasty things can fly into the lungs unpredictably.
Smoking and alcohol abuse predispose to infection in the lower respiratory tract. We have already discussed the mechanism of harmful effects of smoking in the article on chronic bronchitis.
To this you can add the unfavorable living conditions of prisoners, homeless people or some kind of industrial air pollution.
Who attacks us
Most often it is pneumococcus and viruses. They say that in half of the cases, the culprit is never found.
New features
This area also has its own fashion trends. In richer countries, the incidence of pneumococcal pneumonia is now declining. People are vaccinated against this microbe and are less likely to get sick.
Viruses are now more commonly identified as the cause of pneumonia. This is due to good modern laboratory diagnostics.
It is interesting that in half of the cases it is not possible to identify the pathogen. If earlier they didn't bother too much, now they are trying to apply the latest diagnostic methods. But more and more often nothing concrete is found.
But while they were looking for evil microbes, they managed to find some previously unknown microbiome in the lungs.
That is, traditionally healthy lungs are considered a sterile environment. But when they began to try to find the exact cause of pneumonia, they stumbled upon microbes that quietly live in the very depths of the lungs.
It is suspected that these microbes can multiply and attack under unfavorable conditions, or simply spoil our local immunity in the lungs.
How does it all happen
There is a traditional view of pneumonia. People infect each other with germs. They sneeze, cough and spread the infection to different places. Microbes enter our upper respiratory tract.
A microbe alone usually cannot cause pneumonia. It should multiply somewhere in the nose, and then fly into the lungs with snot. That is, this infection, before attacking, should accumulate strength in our nasopharynx.
If such a snot is sufficiently saturated with bacteria, or if the lungs are already spoiled by some disease, then an infectious process will begin in the depths of the lungs.
It's getting harder now
So they thought before. Now that the lungs have found their own microbiome, ideas have changed slightly. Now it is suspected that the infection should not only fly into the lungs, but also compete with our native lung microbes. If we have them dead, then evil bacteria will take their place.
Our native lung microbes can boost our immunity against intruders. And that would be good.
You already understood that when scientists dug it all out, the idea of pulmonary dysbiosis immediately arose, in which our native microbes get sick and cannot protect us.
Evil microbes in the mouth
In this area, everything is still poorly understood. Our native lung microbes are said to be similar to those found in the mouth. And we have a very vicious infection in our mouth. Human bites hurt more than animal bites. It is believed that native lung microbes can also, on occasion, harm us very much.
It is suspected that smoking or a viral infection can affect the composition of the beneficial microflora and stimulate the growth of something dangerous.
Our native lung microbes are very difficult to grow in the laboratory. Maybe that's why in half of the cases the cause of pneumonia cannot be determined.
Here's a story.
If you liked the article, then like and subscribe to my channel, read my articles on related topics:
Why alcohol flows from the nose, and pneumonia from fumes
Lies about obstructive bronchitis
