Researchers Find New Technique to Fight Seasonal Asthma, Read on!

Asthma is a chronic disease that causes inflammation and narrowness of the airways of your lungs. The symptoms of asthma vary from person to person. The most prominent ones are coughing at night or in the morning, wheezing, shortness of breath, and tightness or pressure in the chest causing pains.

Now, the journal of Science Immunology has a new study published that has revealed new ways of treating season asthma. The research comes from a team of scientists from the Indiana University School of Medicine Department of Microbiology and Immunology. The lead author of the paper, Dr. Ben Ulrich, said that Asthma has no cure, and the presently practiced treatments only focus on resolving symptoms. He further added – “While spending time in the high-risk asthma clinic at Riley Hospital for Children, I observed many patients had a more intermittent disease course. We went into the lab and developed models to more accurately define allergic memory and recall response in the lung.”

When someone comes in contact with seasonal allergens like pollen, fungi or other types of allergens that are only dominating during a particular time of the year, they activate a certain type of cell that causes inflammatory symptoms. Seasonal asthma symptoms include wheezing, coughing, and in severe cases loss of breath and hospitalisation. In addition to inflammation, airway blockage and mucus cause such symptoms too.

These cells excrete a certain cytokine named interleukin 9 or IL-9 which are the primary reason for all these symptoms. The team said that the method of treatment would be to target IL-9 to help with lung inflammation. Cytokine is cell secretion that causes the immune system to affect other cells.

Dr. Mark Kaplan, who’s the chairman of the IU School of Medicine Department of Microbiology and Immunology and senior author of the study said that Asthma exists in various forms. Seasonal asthma can be majorly different because of long exposure to the allergens or fungi that cause inflammation. He added that the study published shows that targeting IL-9 in the lungs during seasonal asthma can help reduce lung inflammation. This could be done with the help of memory cells that activate the recall response for allergies in the lungs and help with a new way of treating asthma.

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