Home > How we help > Asthma Podcast > The Asthma Podcast - Transcript March 2009

The Asthma Podcast - Transcript March 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 find out how you can get involved in Asthma UK’s national fundraising week, we discover how hookworms could have a role in preventing asthma, one of our asthma nurse specialists has advice on springtime asthma triggers and there’s still time to sign up for the Asthma UK 10K.

 


Luke: Asthma UK is looking for your help to turn the nation lime with the launch of our new fundraising week called Putting Asthma in the Limelight. Here to tell us more is Becky Smith from our Community Fundraising Team. Becky can you tell us a bit more about Limelight and how people can get involved?
 
Becky: Putting Asthma in the Limelight is Asthma UK’s first ever fundraising week. There are over 1.1 million children in the UK with asthma and by supporting this new fundraising week people will be able to help support these children.

Luke: And the types of events you can do are really from the very small to the very big…
 
Becky: Yes definitely. The fundraising week has been split into three categories to try and make the fundraising a bit easier for people to get involved with - to try and allow it to appeal to more people - and it's split into wearing lime, putting yourself in the limelight and eating and drinking lime. For wearing lime we’ve got many different suggestions, some of which are asking everyone to pay to wear lime to work or school, or perhaps having a lime themed fancy dress party, wearing lime wig to work or sponsoring your teacher or your boss to wear one. And actually partydomain.com are very kindly donating 10% of every sale of lime products from 1 March, so please do visit that website if you’re looking to purchase any lime accessories for your eventOne of the main sort of things were encouraging people to do is to help us put asthma in the limelight in May so were also asking individuals and groups to put themselves in the limelight and this might be by organising a play or a concert or perhaps hosting a lime themed quiz in their local pub, or perhaps having a lime factor talent show - really whatever anybody wants to do and obviously one of the more easier and simple things is to eat and drink and perhaps people might want to have a lime themed dinner party, they might want to have a sponsored bake off, perhaps a key limed pie competition at work…

Luke: So how can people find out more information and get involved?

Becky: We’ve designed free fundraising pack to help people with their fundraising it should contain everything that they need in terms of how to order their materials, where to send their money to, their registration and a lot of ideas on what they could do. And they can get their free fundraising pack by emailing info@asthma.org.uk or by calling 0800 121 62 55 or alternatively they can also visit our Limelight fundraising page on the website which is www.asthma.org.uk/limelight


Luke: There have been some interesting developments in the news recently. In January a story hit the headlines about hookworms and whether or not they could provide a cure for asthma. To tell us more about this were joined by Dr Elaine Vickers from Asthma UK’s Research team. Elaine, why on earth would worms have anything to do with asthma and what’s the proof, what’s the science behind it?

Elaine: So the idea took root quite a few years ago now when researchers discovered that in some countries where a lot of people are infected by hookworms, asthma and allergies are a lot less common than they are in the UK and they think that hookworm infection might sort of, change your immune system. It might change the balance of what’s happening inside the body and actually suppress the parts of the immune system that lead to asthma and allergies and they think in the UK where we actually have really good sanitation and hygiene and hookworm infections are less common this might be changing this balance of our immune system and causing the excess of cases of asthma 

Luke: What exactly is a hookworm and how is it bad for you, or is it bad for you?

Elaine: Hookworms are not a happy thought. They’re tiny little worms, you pick them up from soil or by eating or drinking contaminated food or water so they’re very common in developing countries and scientists estimate that about 2 billion people have hookworms living in their intestines. It sounds really horrid but they are tiny so its not as disgusting as it sounds, and fully grown and adult hookworm is only about a centimetre in length, they’re small they live in your intestines and most people don’t have any symptoms but they can cause anaemia and other medical problems especially if you have a poor immune system so if you’re malnourished like children in the developing world then they do have a lot of problems with them.

Luke:  Given that the research seems to suggest quite strongly that people infected with hookworms have much lower instance of asthma. Could we ever see the day when doctors would be deliberately infecting people with hookworms to help them treat their asthma?

Elaine: I think that’s unlikely, apart from in research studies I don’t think its going to be a general treatment with asthma, to deliberately infect people with worms. The first thing to do is to find out whether there really is anything in this whether hookworms can prevent asthma or reduce asthma symptoms in people who already have asthma. And that’s why there are a couple of ongoing studies, funded by the welcome trust and also a study funded by us, by Asthma UK both of which are led by professor John Britton at the university of Nottingham and he wants to find out whether being infected with hookworms can reduce your asthma symptoms and also whether it really can reduce your risk of asthma if you’re at high risk of asthma.

The hope is that they can identify the particular molecules, the particular things that are inside hookworms and what they do to the human body that means allergy and asthma are less common or reduces symptoms and they want to isolate whatever molecule this is, purify it, find a way of manufacturing it and use that as a treatment for people with asthma or to create a way of reducing the risk of asthma in people at high risk so its probably gonna be medicines that are based on molecules produced by hookworms and not deliberately infecting people with hookworms

Luke: But there will be some people who will have to be deliberately infected with hookworms?

Elaine: Yes that’s a study going on at the moment funded by the Welcome Trust where people have volunteered to be infected with hookworms to see if it reduces their asthma symptoms.

Luke: That seems like a rather extreme way of getting involved with asthma research is there any more conventional ways that people might be able to support asthma research?

Elaine: Absolutely and we believe its really important that people with asthma and the parents or carers of people with asthma have the opportunity to influence our research and policy work and help us set the agenda of what it is that we do to make sure that it matches up with the hopes, the fears, the priorities of people with asthma.

And that’s why we’re setting up a panel of Research and Policy volunteers so that we’re listening to people with asthma in all that we do and letting them set our agenda. They might be helping us decide what research projects we fund, sharing their experience with us, taking part in a focus group maybe. Or just answering an online questionnaire, it could be as little as a phone call or as much as getting really stuck in and helping us set our priorities.

Its completely open to individuals how much they want to do and yeah, on the same page as this podcast, at the bottom there is a contact us link so do, if you’re interested do give us a call and say you’d like to get involved.


Luke: There’s still to sign up for Asthma UK’s 10k which is on the 11th of April and here to tell us more about this is Paul Parry from our events team

Paul: Hello there, yes, this year’s Asthma UK 10k is on the 11th of April, on.. it’s Easter Saturday so even incorporating some Easter activities for kids in there. It’s the usual 10K so you do a couple of laps of Dorney Lake Windsor, the Olympic 2012 venue for rowing and canoeing. It’s really quite a fantastic venue and the great thing about it for running is that it’s an entirely flat course so if you want to hit your personal best for 10k, get down to Dorney Lake. So if you’d like to enter the 10K or the 2K or even the 2x5 relay that I haven’t yet mentioned, have a look at the website which is www.asthma.org.uk/10K.


Luke: With the weather brightening and temperatures rising it’s starting to feel as though spring is in the air. But what does this mean for people with asthma? We’re joined by Barbara Stephenson, one of our asthma nurse specialists who has some advice about potential asthma triggers this season. What sort of things should people be looking for this time of year?

Barbara: A lot of people with asthma have allergic rhinitis as well which is caused by tree pollens and they often start occurring at this time of year, a lot of people think hay fever and rhinitis are only in the summer related to grass pollens and things like that but tree pollens start in mostly March and carry on all through the summer and they’ll notice their asthma symptoms may increase and they may get symptoms like a runny or blocked nose. They may get itchy eyes or an irritable throat and possible a cough because of the mucus that can drip down the back of their throat and they may start sneezing and therefore they need to start taking their hay fever medication sometimes a bit early than they think they might.

Luke: What type of hay fever medicines do people usually take?

Barbara: Ok, well a lot of people, because your nose is lined with the same sort of sells as your lungs and therefore it can be irritable and that’s what causes all these symptoms, they may need to use a nose spray to damp down all that inflammation in their nose and they may need to use eye drops because itchy eyes can be controlled by eye drops and also they may need to start their asthma medication if they don’t normally use it in the winter or they may need to increase it and sometimes they need antihistamine tablets as well.

Luke: And are there any kind of practical measures other than taking medicines that people can take to avoid hay fever triggers?

Barbara: Well obviously they can, you know, not going walking in places where they know it will really trigger their asthma. They can sometimes, if they’re really exposed to pollens they can use Vaseline, a little bit of Vaseline in the bottom of their nose which can trap the spores. But it is difficult to avoid, especially if you live in the country so you just have to make sure your treatment is really, is really good. And one thing I did just want to mention is that if people do need a lot of prescriptions at a certain time of year they can get a pre-payment certificate which can make it much more cost effective for them, and we have all the information about that on a factfile on our website which is called Prescription Charges and Asthma.