Professor Phil Hansbro, of the Hunter Medical Research Institute, said after collaborating with a team in Germany, they had found a process in the body that leads to such chronic respiratory conditions. Picture: Marina Neil
THERE is currently no cure for emphysema – but a discovery by University of Newcastle researchers could provide new hope to sufferers.
It could also help with new ways of managing asthma.
Collaborating with a team in Germany, the researchers have found a process in the body that leads to such chronic respiratory conditions.
Professor Phil Hansbro, of the Hunter Medical Research Institute, explained that now they knew a cause, they could develop new drugs to stop it occurring.
Emphysema is an irreversible degenerative condition which causes shortness of breath.
Many people with emphysema also have chronic bronchitis and most cases are caused by cigarette smoking or long-term exposure to certain industrial pollutants or dust.
Professor Hansbro explained that they had found that sinister specks of a molecule known as ASC escaped from cells and then coursed throughout the body triggering inflammation in other cells.
This was found to happen after exposure to allergens or cigarette smoke.
“What we’ve discovered is these ASC molecules bind together and are released from the cell and move around the body and stimulate more and more inflammatory responses,” he said.
“This snowball effect causes more and more intense inflammation.
“It takes just a few cells for ASC specks to activate lots of other cells.
“This then causes things like an overproduction of mucus in the body.”
Professor Hansbro said the specks retained their ability to trigger inflammation even after the immune system kicked in to destroy the original cell they came from.
“Because it’s active all the time, it drives this continual cycle of inflammation… it becomes exaggerated and uncontrollable, which could underpin why we get asthma attacks,” he said.
Professor Hansbro said that the discovery related mostly to emphysema and it was hoped they could develop new drugs to treat the disease.
“It’s the third most common cause of death in world and the fifth most common cause of death in Australia,’’ he said.
“If we could develop inhibitors drugs to stop this process we might be able to restore the perpetual inflammatory response to normal.”
RESEARCHERS have found the chances of developing asthma increases as a child’s weight goes up.
Scientists from the University of Queensland Diamantina Institute and the UK’s Bristol University found the relative risk of asthma increased by 55 per cent for every extra unit of body mass index (BMI).
Asthma prevalence in Australia is high by international standards – one in 10 people in Australia has asthma.
And doctors have known for years that there’s an observational relationship between how overweight a person is and their risk of asthma.
But this is the first time researchers have been able to demonstrate a causal link between the two.
Professor David Evans from the University of Queensland Diamantina Institute said the researchers employed a new method that uses both genetic information and observational data in order to assess whether BMI has a causal effect on asthma.
They investigated the link in 5000 children aged seven-and-a-half years.
‘‘Basically the idea is if you take genes that you know are related to being overweight – and if being overweight causes asthma – then you’d expect that those genes would be related to increased risk of asthma.
‘‘This is exactly what we found.’’
These findings suggest that a higher BMI increases the risk of asthma in mid-childhood, and that public health interventions designed to reduce obesity may also help to limit the global rise in asthma.
The incidence of asthma – a chronic condition caused by inflammation of the airways – has been rising steadily over the past few decades.
It is estimated that up to 300 million adults and children worldwide are affected by asthma.
Although asthma can develop at any age, it is often diagnosed in childhood.