14 DAY TRIAL // As many as 300 million people around the world struggle with asthma in this day and age. The good news is that, by the looks of it, we have high chances to do away with this condition forever and for always by the time this decade is over.
In a study in the journal Science Translational Medicine, scientists with Cardiff University and King's College London in the UK and their colleagues at Mayo Clinic in the US announce the discovery of the root cause of asthma.
Besides, the team of researchers behind this breakthrough say that, now that they know exactly how and why asthma symptoms happen, a cure for this condition might become available to the general population in about 5 years' time.
How asthma attacks come to happen
Medical experts describe asthma as a chronic inflammatory disease of the airways whose symptoms include shortness of breath, chest tightness, coughing and wheezing.
The symptoms occur because, in the case of asthma sufferers, having their airways come into contact with various irritants causes them to swell up and narrow. For years, the cause of this inflammation remained unknown.
Apparently, it's a specific protein known as calcium sensing receptor (CaSR) that triggers asthma attacks when activated by common allergens, cigarette smoke, and traffic exhaust, EurekAlert informs.
In their report in the journal Science Translational Medicine, the specialists explain that, once activated by irritants, this so-called calcium sensor receptor goes on to wreak havoc in the airways.
“These triggers [allergens and pollutants] release chemicals that activate CaSR in airway tissue and drive asthma symptoms like airway twitchiness, inflammation, and narrowing,” explains scientist Daniela Riccardi.
We might already have a cure for asthma
Interestingly, researcher Daniela Riccardi and colleagues argue that, according to their investigations into the matter at hand, it could be that we already have a cure for asthma.
More precisely, the scientists say that, in a series of experiments, they found that existing drugs developed to treat osteoporosis, i.e. calcilytics, can deactivate the calcium sensing receptor proteins responsible for asthma attacks.
The researchers are now looking into the possibility to use these drugs or at least the active ingredients in them to address asthma symptoms. They stress that, now that they know what causes asthma, it is only a matter of time until they find a cure.
“If we can prove that calcilytics are safe when administered directly to the lung in people, then in five years we could be in a position to treat patients and potentially stop asthma from happening in the first place,” says Daniela Riccardi.