How To Choose Asthma Air Purifier

What is an Asthma Air Purifier ?

Asthma air purifiers are air purifiers which may help to alleviate respiratory disease symptoms including asthma and chronic obstruction pulmonary disease (COPD).

Does Asthma Air Purifier Work ?

To answer this question, let's first see what an asthma is and what triggers it.

Asthma is a chronic condition in the respiratory system in which the airway occasionally constricts, inflamed, and is lined with excessive amounts of mucus. During an asthma attack, asthma sufferers experience shortness of breath. Asthma attack is often in response to one or more triggers, such as as exposure to environmental stimulant such as cold air and irritating gases/chemicals; environmental allergen such as mold, dust, waste of household pets or pest and pollen; upper respiratory infection; exercise and emotional stress.

Usually, an asthma sufferer knows very well what triggers his asthma from his experience. For instance, an asthma sufferer with hay fever or pollen allergy will have seasonal symptoms, those with pet dander allergy may experience alleviation of symptoms when away from home, and those whose asthma are triggered by cold air get asthma more frequently in winter. If the asthma is triggered by either allergy or environmental pollutant, it's prudent to eliminate these asthma triggers from his daily life. Doing so will reduce the number of asthma symptoms.

EPA, or Environmental Protection Agency, stated that indoor air is proven to carry more contaminants, some of which are asthma inducing, and be more toxic to breathe than most outdoor air. Since most people spend about 90% of their time indoors, having clean and breathable indoors is therefore an important factor, especially for someone suffering from pollutant-induced asthma. The simplest and cheapest way of doing this is by removing the source of contaminants, such as keeping pets outside or not smoking tobacco products at home, by having a good ventilation, and by regular dusting/vacuuming. However, asthma air purifier is proven to be the most effective and easiest way to keep indoor air clean.

Indeed, many people suffering asthma and other respiratory diseases have found relief when using an asthma air purifier. Still, some do not find any symptoms alleviation. This could be caused by two things:

• Either the asthma is not caused by pollutants/allergen, or the asthma cause is multifactorial. Really, if your asthma is caused by cold air, exercise, or stress, then obviously an asthma air purifier won't help much. In contrast, if your asthma is caused by environmental allergen, then you will find help by using an asthma air cleaner.
  
  
• The air purifier bought is not effective enough to curb out environmental pollutant. Most of the air purifier out there are designed to provide a good all around cleaning, and do not generally fit to use for people with real health problems. This is because most of them are not good enough in removing environmental pollutant, especially the small size pollutants. If you want to buy an asthma air purifier, it's important to read our guide below so you can be sure you buy the right air purifier.

In conclusion, asthma and COPD symptoms can be helped by asthma air purifiers, as long as they are sensitive to indoor air pollution and the air purifier used is the one which is suitable for people with respiratory problems.

How To Buy an Asthma Air Purifier

Prior buying an air purifier for asthma or COPD sufferers, it is important to know that not all air purifiers are designed to use for asthma or COPD sufferers.

First, not all of them are safe. You certainly should avoid buying the ones which emit ozone, be it as a by product or as a method of cleaning, since ozone is a lung irritant.

So how do you know that an air purifier emits ozone ?

You know whether an air purifier is likely to emit ozone by looking at how it works. Basically, an air purifier can utilize some of these following air purification methods:

• One, is through physical means. Fall into this category is the use of filter (including HEPA filter), carbon filter (to absorb gas) and chemical filter (to absorb inorganic chemical gases).
  
  
• Second, is through an ionizer. An ionic air purifier discharges negative particles via high voltage to surrounding, so that those particles can attach to airborne pollutants. The airborne pollutants can then fall into the carpet or stick to the wall, and therefore stop being airborne. Alternatively, the airborne pollutants can be sucked into the air purifier machine and stuck onto an electrostatic plate in the machine. Ionic air purifier is particularly popular because you don't need to buy any replacement filter, and it's quiet.
  
  
• Third, is through ozone generation. Basically, this air purifier emits high amount of ozone which can react to the airborne pollutant and convert the pollutant into other chemicals. This type of air purifier is actually dangerous for home use and is not recommended at all by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). Unfortunately, it is quite popular because it is very robust, easy to maintain, cheap to own and the companies which make them generally have strong marketing techniques.

The only safe air purifier for asthma or COPD sufferers are the ones which do not emit ozone, or, if emit ozone, it emits at a negligible level. Therefore, according to this criteria, all ozone generators are automatically out of question.

Now, how about the ionic and filter-based air purifier ?

Some ionic or sometimes called electronic air purifiers can emit ozone as the by-product. Now, it is possible that these products claim to be safe since they emit ozone at a level which is lower than the threshold set by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) . But, if you have a respiratory disease, it's highly advisable to avoid air purifiers which emit ozone altogether, because ozone is well-known as a lung irritant.

Having said that, there are a minority of air purifier which uses ionizer without emitting any ozone. In this case, it is safe to buy those. In fact, one of the recommended premium air purifier is an ionic air purifier, called Blueair. This brand is very safe and is also very effective in retaining pollutants.

The question is, how do you differentiate a good ionic air purifiers from lemons ?

Unfortunately, the only way to do it is to search through the web for reviews and only buy the one which states 'no ozone'. If it doesn't say that, it's prudent to avoid it. The other way of doing it is to go to either online or local allergy stores since allergy specialty stores usually only carry air purifiers which do not emit ozone.

This leaves us with air purifiers which use filtration means. These air purifiers are completely safe and are your best bet.

We cannot recommend enough HEPA-filter based air purifiers, or safe ionic air purifiers, for people with either asthma or COPD.

Second, once you eliminate the ozone-emitting air purifiers, it is time to look at the effectiveness in curbing out pollutants.

In order to get an air purifier which can alleviate your asthma or COPD symptoms, you will need an air purifier which is effective. This means it has to be able to retain both bigger and smaller pollutant alike. This includes all size of dust, pollen, pet dander, dust mite dropping and mold. It also has to be able to control smoke and at least the volatile organic gases. In addition, bacteria and viruses should be caught and killed in the machine since you want to minimize upper respiratory infection caused by these germs. This means you want to have an asthma air purifier which has over 99% efficiency of capturing all sorts of contaminants.

Note the word 'all' here. Many HEPA air purifier advertisers tout that their air purifiers retain 99.97% of pollutants sized 0.3 micron and more. While 99.97% efficiency of a HEPA air purifier is great (provided the theoretical efficiency of HEPA filter is maintained at the practical level), it is important to know that when you have a real health problem you want to alleviate, your air purifier needs to also capture most pollutants sized 0.3 micron or less with good efficiency.

Air purifier equipped with a HEPA filter only can capture such small pollutants (0.3 micron or less) at reduced efficiency. Therefore, an ideal asthma air purifier should not only has a True HEPA filter, but also employs other methods of purification to help capture smaller sized pollutants, such as different types of gases, smaller germs and dust.

For instance, a HEPA air purifier can be equipped with things like ozone-free ionizer or significant amount of gas absorbant (such as carbon). Or the manufacturer can design its own proprietory HEPA filter which goes beyond the HEPA filter standard of filtration.

We suggest you to buy only HEPA-based premium air purifier for health purpose (see the list of premium air purifiers here). Not only are these air purifiers safe. But they are also very effective in retaining all sizes of airborne pollutant.

• First, they have a number of purification stages using high quality filters to ensure retention of all size of particles.
• And secondly, they have tight housing to ensure no dirty air can by pass their purification system.

Only when you have a high quality asthma air purifier that you, as an asthma or COPD sufferer, can expect the benefit of air purification.

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