• Question: do you think there will ever be a cure for asthma

    Asked by samueleason to Christine, Edd, Jess, Nicolas, Zara on 15 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Christine Switzer

      Christine Switzer answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Yes, I think we will find a cure (or cures) for asthma, but I think we still have a lot of work to do to understand why people get asthma and why more people are getting asthma. Diagnosis is better now than in the past but I think it is still increasing more than just the rate of better diagnosis. I am sure some of the contaminants I study are not helping. Although I study soils, a lot of them can be in the air around industrial sites. Better soil clean up methods and better air filters in the short term, followed by cleaner industrial processes in the long term, can all help improve air quality.

    • Photo: Edward Codling

      Edward Codling answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      I hope so – I am lucky enough not to suffer but I know people who do and how hard it can be. I know a lot of scientists are working in this area so hopefully we will get a cure some day!

    • Photo: Jessica Chu

      Jessica Chu answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      This is a good question!

      Maybe eventually there will be a cure (hopefully!). This is a hard one because it can also be caused by our genes we have got from our parents! And that is quite hard to change :-s

      This NHS website is a good source of information:
      http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Asthma/Pages/Causes.aspx

      As the website suggested – there are so many causes (not just a single one) unless we live in a bubble then we are exposed to many of the causes and it says it can be caused by our emotions too!

      But hopefully some clever researchers out there are working hard on it and will find a cure but if there is one- I don’t think it will be anytime soon sadly.

    • Photo: Zara Gladman

      Zara Gladman answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      I don’t know much about asthma but I really hope so! A couple of my friends are bad asthma sufferers.

      Even if there isn’t a cure any time soon, there are new treatments being developed. This one, for example, is being trialled in Manchester and Glasgow right this minute: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13690102 Lots of people suffer from asthma and so institutions like Asthma UK (http://www.asthma.org.uk/for_researchers/about_our_research/) provide a great deal of funding for research to tackle the disease.

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