This may be a minority view on the status medicine in general and on
the need to stick to traditions..

In 1919 Dr. Greenfield Sluder of St. Louis read a paper with a theory
that asthma was caused by nose conditions, see
http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~s3e0101/webserver/webdata/SluderJAMA.doc
(4MB).  This view became widely known in the medical world.

His attempts to treat asthma medically however led to unpredictable
results and medical treatment was developed on the basis of drugs to
relax the airways, on iodine suspensions, to a very small extent on
x-ray treatment (not examination) and also on extirpation of the vagus
nerve.  It was thought that the drugs could be perfected and freed of
"side-effects" as not being an essential and inseparable effect of
their use.

Now recent research on endogenous nitric oxide (NO) from the nose as
being an important factor necessary for lung function should seemingly
lead to a review of the position taken by Sluder as being fundamentally
correct and consequently and to a search for possible interventions
without a limitation to strictly "medical" ones, i.e. medication or
surgery.  Any treatment of the nose likely to improve breathing should
be considered, like yoga for example, for the purpose of a genuinely
scientific approach and not just one that is truly medical in the sense
of being economically feasible for doctors. For yoga f. i. an immense
amount of time is needed for training patients.  Although the
"dosage" of a yoga routine like alternate nostril breathing cannot
be measured like that of sprays or pills, it should be within the
capability of a good doctor to assess progress of a patient using such
a protocol and getting his training from a yoga specialist. Regards,
Richard Friedel .