Serious Warning about Eating Hedgehog Meat for Treatment of Asthma

Allergic asthma as a heterogeneous disease, is a main global problem in health. Newly, 300 million people worldwide have asthma. In recent years, asthma has be-come an increasingly prevalent disease worldwide, espe-cially for children. Allergic asthma is characterized by symptoms of wheezing, coughing, shortness of breath, airway inflammation. Asthma has a strong genetic background but exposing to allergens and other nonspecific environmental factors could activate this susceptibility. The involved allergen specific immune response induces T helper 2 lymphocytes that active eosinophils, mast cells, basophils, airway epithelial cells, and immunoglobulin-secreting B cells that lead to allergic and inflammation responses (Bel, 2013; Corren et al., 2011). Today, several drugs have been developed to control asthma. Traditional medicines, especially herbal ones have been used to control and manage it for a long time. Recent-ly, tends to traditional medicine has been increased due to their low side effects and cost (Athari, 2013; Bel, 2013). According to the unofficial reports, in some countries such as Iran, local people believe that eating hedgehog meat can completely cure asthma sufferers. Eating hedge-hogʹs meat is not only ineffective but it can be harmful in some cases of severe asthma since hedgehog proteins can cause allergic reactions in atopic patients and exacerbate asthma attacks. It could be kind of food allergies that lead to asthma. The infections and parasites of the animal meat can also be risk factors for it. On the other hand, there is no scientific evidence to prove that eating hedgehogʹs meat is useful for the treatment of asthma, so far. To date, no cure for asthma has been identified, rather only controlling drugs and techniques have been proposed. The slaughter of the animals due to something that does not benefit in terms of work, in ethical and moral glance, is inhuman. It will damage wildlife and the environment. Therefore, this is a dangerous approach in public health and a serious threat to health that is important warning for consumers and health care providers till by informing these people do this to avoid.