Cold-care breakthrough hope for asthmatics
RHIANNON EDWARD
A SCIENTIFIC breakthrough could benefit hundreds of thousands of asthmatics who suffer serious attacks when they have a cold.
Around half of all asthmatics are believed to suffer an acute attack when a normal reliever inhaler or steroid preventative does not have the same affect as usual when they have a respiratory virus, usually a cold.
New research, published today in the journal Nature Medicine, has discovered that asthmatics produce half the number of anti-viral proteins when fighting a cold as non-asthmatics.
When infected with the common cold - caused by rhinoviruses - the lung cells of asthmatics produce far less of the proteins, which are generated by the immune system. This increases the severity of asthma symptoms as lung cells become more susceptible to infection.
The researchers believe a new generation of treatments could be created to deliver anti-viral medicine directly to the lungs to help the body fight such viruses.
This article: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/health.cfm?id=1180162006
Last updated: 14-Aug-06 02:02 BST
