Christmas trees, candle fumes and smoking Christmas puddings may be festive but they can all make asthma symptoms worse this holiday season. A sudden change in weather, especially gusts of freezing air, thunderstorms, colds and flu can all trigger asthma attacks. Asthma sufferers have more sensitive airways and the condition can lead to unpleasant symptoms […]
On Thursday 23 November five young doctors will compete for the coveted title of Wesleyan RSM Trainee of the Year 2017. Marking the culmination of the Royal Society of Medicine’s 2016/17 prize programme for trainee doctors, the awards evening will celebrate the very best of the RSM and its trainees. We will be awarding prizes […]
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Diesel fumes, which are a major component of air pollution in European cities, trigger respiratory reflexes which could potentially worsen underlying conditions, such as asthma. Researchers at Imperial College London have become the first to demonstrate how this happens. Previous research has shown a strong association between urban air pollution and respiratory symptoms such as […]
Adults who have never had allergies can suddenly develop asthma, eczema of food allergies long after they have left childhood behind. ‘Although most people develop allergies when they are children, a small number can find themselves sensitized to allergens like pollen, foods or house dust mites when their immune systems have already fully matured,’ explains […]
Why do some children develop asthma and others don’t? Scientists at the University of Aberdeen are hoping to be able to answer this question when they follow more than a thousand babies until they’re of school-age to try to find out what factors cause the condition to develop. Previous small-scale experiments carried out in Aberdeen […]
Every five minutes in the UK, one person dies from lung disease, a statistic that underlines the massive impact of conditions such as COPD, chronic asthma and lung cancer. Yet, despite the fact that lung disease is one of the three big killers in the UK, alongside cancer and cardiovascular disease, it comes a very […]
Asthma is caused by a temporary narrowing of the airways. Special mast cells on the surface of the breathing tubes react to certain triggers, which can include pollens, cold air, exercise or even anxiety. The mast cells release substances called histamine and leukotrienes which cause the smooth muscles in the airways to contract and mucus […]
Allergic disease accounts for 10 per cent of the GP prescribing budget and the incidence of asthma has reached epidemic proportions. So what lies behind the epidemic? Allergies do tend to run in families, but this cannot be the explanation for why there has been such a huge surge in the number of sufferers. Doctors now believe that our environment, […]
People with severe asthma can benefit from a procedure called bronchial thermoplasty which uses blasts of heat to cut asthma attacks by a third. Around five million people in the UK suffer from asthma and half a million sufferers have severe asthma which cannot be controlled by drugs. 1000 people have fatal asthma attacks each year. The new treatment […]
Millions of people suffer from asthma which is now recognised as a syndrome rather than a single disease. However, we lack the high-quality data sets to understand the ‘bigger picture’ of this common lung condition and will separate out the different mechanisms linked to distinct asthma types. Yes, we can look at NHS data and patient records, but this information […]