Home > How we help > Asthma Podcast > Asthma Podcast - Transcript February 2009

The Asthma Podcast - Transcript February 2009

Luke: Welcome to the The Asthma Podcast. Every month we’ll bring you news, research updates, asthma advice and ways you can support us.

This month, we have news about research into asthma during pregnancy, some fantastic ways to get fit and raise money in 2009, advice for people with asthma in the workplace, and the launch of a new campaign called ‘Businesses Against Asthma’. Also, we speak to one of our asthma nurse specialists about how to manage your asthma during the winter months.

We’ve had some really interesting news stories on the Asthma UK website recently, including some research into the use of asthma medicines during pregnancy. Here to tell us more is Dr Elaine Vickers, Asthma UK’s Research Relations Manager. Elaine, thanks for joining us. Can you tell us a bit more about this study?

Elaine: It’s hard to avoid information and advice for pregnant women. We’re just inundated, so there’s a real need for women who are pregnant to receive really accurate advice they can actually act upon.

So I wanted to highlight the work of Dr Richard Hubbard and colleagues at the University of Nottingham and Asthma UK funded them, a couple of years back now, to investigate the safety of taking asthma treatments during pregnancy.

They looked at over 35,000 babies and they found that asthma medicines didn’t increase the likelihood that these children were born with any birth defects. So they can categorically say that taking asthma medicines during pregnancy is safe.

Luke: Another piece of research we found quite interesting was one that links winter viruses with asthma. Can you tell us more about this?

Elaine: This is a really fascinating piece of research by American group of researchers and they were investigating whether viruses can actually cause asthma.

We know that viruses and asthma are intimately linked, that probably about 90% of people with asthma get symptoms whenever they get a cold or flu. So we know that viruses can trigger asthma symptoms but what we don’t know, and what causes ongoing debate and argument within the scientific community, is whether viruses can actually cause asthma to begin with.

So these scientists took an unusual approach - they looked at when winter viruses peaked so when it is through the year that most people have got chest infections caused by viruses, then they looked at birth records and found out what month children were born in relation to this winter virus peak, and they looked which children are getting asthma.

And what they found was that children born precisely four months before the peak of winter virus infections had the greatest risk of having asthma.

So what that means is that viruses seem to have a causal role in asthma. If there was no causal role then you wouldn’t get this peak and troft depending on the time of year you were born. So the fact that there is a peak in asthma risk and that it’s linked, that it has a link to the time of year that viruses are most prevalent, means that viruses probably do have a role in causing asthma and not just in triggering symptoms.

Luke: If you’re looking for a fun way to get fit this year, Asthma UK is here to help. Here to tell us more is our Events Manager, Helen Dodd. Morning Helen.

Helen: Morning Luke.

Luke: Thanks for joining us.

Helen: Thank you.

Luke: We’ve got a new Events Calendar out for the year haven’t we? Can you tell us a bit about that?

Helen: Yeah, we have. Every year we produce an Events Calendar in the beginning of the year to let everyone know what events we’ve got going on. First one coming up on the 11th of April is our Asthma UK 10K which is out in Windsor, Dorney Lake – beautiful venue and really flat course to run round the lake.

We’ve also got a 2 by 5k relay that people can take part in if they don’t fancy the full distance and a 2k relay for kids because it’s over the Easter weekend so we’ve got activities for kids... and the Easter bunny may even make an appearance.

Luke: This has been a great success over the years and we’re hoping this one is bigger and better.

Helen: Exactly, yeah it’s been a brilliant event for us. It’s Asthma UK’s own event and it’s in its fourth year now. We’re hoping to have 800 people take part this year and it’s a great run to start the year off because if you’ve just been through the Christmas season, overeaten, had a bit too much to drink and thinking ‘Right, I wanna get fit!’ this is the perfect first event for anyone out there who’s looking to do that because they can just start training now and should be up to the 10k distance comfortably by April and it’s also really nice event for people with asthma because there’s lots and lots of people with asthma taking part.

Luke: So there’s some great running events coming up, There’s also some more adventure-ish ones that people can take part in as well, aren’t there?

Helen: Yeah, we’ve also got a few really exciting trekking events. In September, we’ve got a Trek to China and we’re really delighted to announce that we’re going to have a celebrity joining us for the Trek, which is fantastic. Chris Tarrant, is going to be testing out his walking boots along the great wall of China with a few of our participants. People are still able to sign up for that event and if they want to join Chris for a 10 day adventure in China, then they’re able to do that.

We’ve also got a brand new event, taking place in September as well, busy month for us, which is the Three Peaks Challenge. For people who don’t know, the Three Peaks Challenge is aiming to climb Ben Nevis in Scotland, Scafell Pike in England and Snowdon in Wales, back to back. We’ve got teams of 5-8 people taking part in that, so it’s a brand new one for us this year so we’re really looking for people to take part and support Asthma UK in doing that. Hopefully we’ll have lots of people involved this year!

Luke: Asthma in the workplace is a major problem, with 750,000 people with asthma findng that things at work make their symptoms worse. We’re joined by William Flower from Asthma UK’s Policy team who’s here to tell us about our new Workplace Charter. William, thanks for joining us today.

Will: Morning Luke. 

Luke: Can you tell us why we’ve updated the charter in the first place.

Will: Well back in July 2007 the smoking ban meant that our charter was actually out of date. So after discussions with colleagues and previous partners, Asthma UK put together a whole new charter that was much tighter and had a much more positive outcome for people with asthma.

Luke: Can you tell us who’s signed up to the charter so far?

Will: At the moment we’ve got about a dozen companies involved including Sainsbury’s, Body Shop and the London Underground.

For people with asthma at work, a sign from their employers that they take their condition seriously is a really important thing so our research had also shown that 12 million days are taken off work due to asthma.

Luke: What can people with asthma do to get the Workplace Charter, and how can they benefit in practice?

Will: We’re looking to get as many organisations involved as possible, so if you’re listening to this and you want your employer to get involved, the Workplace Charter, the new version, is on our website. Download a copy and take it to your employer. Certainly would help them in these tough economic times because 12 million days cost a lot of money.

Luke: And you can download your own copy of the Workplace Charter from our website at asthma.org.uk/workplacecharter

Luke: Asthma UK’s Corporate fundraising have a busy few months ahead and here’s to tell us more is our corporate manager Kate Pollard. Kate, thanks very much for joining us. How’s the start of 2009 gone for the Corporate fundraising team?

Kate: Well its been a really exciting start to 2009 for the Corporate team. Mainly because we were able to publish the winners of our children’s photography competition on our website. This was sponsored by Kodak and they provided the prizes for the winners. The theme was ‘Asthma doesn’t stop me having fun’ and we got some really great entries across a number of age categories.

Luke: And they can be found at kickasthma.org.uk.

Kate: That’s right!

Luke: And you also have some exciting projects in the pipeline this year, can you give us a flavour of what’s coming up?

Kate: Yeah we do, we have a brand new campaign we’re launching in March called ‘Businesses Against Asthma’ and this is actually encouraging small companies to raise awareness of asthma in the workplace and so they can kind of learn about how asthma can affect their employees and how to make the workplace as asthma friendly as possible.

We’ve never actually worked with small companies in this way before so its quite exciting how it will go and there’s over four million small companies in the UK so we could be reaching quite a huge brand new audience, and details will be on the website once its launched so do log on and we’ll keep you posted.

We’ve also got a brand new fundraising campaign called ‘Putting Asthma in the Limelight’ this is going to be a week long campaign in May which coincides with World Asthma Day and will be for all kinds of people and organisations to get involved in lime themed fundraising activities whether its wearing something lime or making something lime, or even doing something like ‘o-lime-pics’ in your office workplace so that obviously is to coincide with the Olympics for London 2012.

So we’re encouraging all our corporate partners to obviously get involved. We’ve also got party domain involved who are a fancy dress company and they are donating 10% of the profits of all their lime coloured wigs, hats, socks, ties so people can actually support us twice by ordering their lime accessories in that way. All the details will be the website and I’m sure you’ll hear more about it in the next podcast!

Luke: Finally this month we are joined by Angela Jones, one of our asthma nurse specialists who is here to tell us about coping with asthma during the cold weather. Angela, thanks for joining us – have you seen an increase in calls to the Adviceline during the past few months?

Angela: Most definitely yes, the number of people admitted to hospital obviously increases during the winter months because of colds and viruses being triggers for asthma. So people are understandably worried, old and young equally are triggered by viruses. When children go back to school they’re mixing with a larger volume of people so there’s a lot more viruses around so from that point of view, September onwards is a bad time for some people.

Luke: And what’s the advice that you give to people who are finding that colds and flu are affecting their asthma?

Angela: Single most important thing is that people keep taking their regular medicines as they have been prescribed by their doctor. If you know that cold air triggers your asthma, it’s a good idea to take a couple of puffs of your reliever inhaler before you go outside.

For some people sudden changes in temperature can be a trigger so for example, you know indoors in the nice warm central heating and then suddenly going outside in the really cold air can sometimes be a trigger. So again, a couple of puffs of blue inhaler before you go out, wrap a scarf around your nose and mouth so that you’re not suddenly bombarded with the cold air.

Luke: You mentioned children are going back to school and this time of year being bad for them. Is there any advice you give specifically to parents of carers who are worried about children’s asthma during the cold weather?

Angela: It’s a good idea to have your asthma reviewed every 6-12 months anyway. And to take your child to the GP and make sure they’re reviewed before the winter starts so that you’ve got a plan of action of what to do if the child’s symptoms start to deteriorate and these are called asthma action plans so that if the parent notices that the symptoms, perhaps a nightime cough, or wheezing or needing to use the blue inhaler more often are appearing, that they know exactly what they should do about that and what point they then need to move on to seek for medical help.

Luke: Thanks Angela. To speak to one of our asthma nurse specialists in person, you can call our freephone number on 0800 121 62 44 or you can send an email through our website at asthma.org.uk/adviceline.