Why Do We Wheeze?

For years, scientists have been puzzled as to why we wheeze. While we know that wheezing occurs when we have a cold, an allergic reaction, or a long-term condition such as asthma, reasons as to why wheezing occurs still remain a puzzle… until now.

New research has used a combination of modelling and high-resolution video to try and shed some light on the mechanisms of wheezing, finding that there's a "violent" process that can cause our lung pipes to make these raspy sounds.

With this new information available, the team is hoping that wheezing might be better understood and diagnosed in the future.

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"We found that there are two conditions for wheezing to occur: the first is that the pressure on the tubes is such that one or more of the bronchioles nearly collapses, and the second is that air is forced through the collapsed airway with enough force to drive oscillations."

In either case, the oscillations are sustained through a fluttering mechanism, where the travelling waves of air have the same frequency as the opening and closing of the tube. The same sort of resonance scenario can collapse bridges and cause aircraft wings to fail, which shows how damaging it could be to the lungs.

Learn more about what causes wheezing over at ScienceAlert.

Yikes!

(Image Credit: Myriams-Fotos/ Pixabay)