The Asthma Podcast - Transcript April 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 focus on our national fundraising week, Putting Asthma in the Limelight. We’ll be speaking to journalist and broadcaster Nicholas Owen about his experiences of asthma and finding out about the celebrities who are supporting the campaign. Finally, in our research round up, we find out how watching too much television could increase asthma risk in children.

Luke: Asthma UK’s national fundraising week, Putting Asthma in the Limelight is almost here and a number of celebrities are backing our campaign to turn the nation lime. Here to ell us more is Sophie Langridge from pour Media and PR team. Sophie thanks for joining us. Who have we got signed up so far.

Sophie: We’ve been really lucky with this campaign and we’ve got loads of people signed up - sporting heroes like Paul Scholes, Singers like Cerys Matthews and a couple of comedians as well.

Luke: I hear there’s a Chelsea footballer that a few people might have heard of.

Sophie: that’s right. Mr Frank Lampard has also signed up to support us.

Luke: Can you give us an idea of what type of things our celebrity supporters are doing for us?

Sophie: We’ve asked them to do a variety of different things. We’ve had a photo shoot with Tina Baker, who was GMTV’s soap queen. She dressed up like Bet Lynch from Coronation Street with a fantastic beehive hairstyle and pranced around in front of the camera for us. Some celebs have also written lime-ricks, including Adrian Lester from Hustle and comedian Helen Lederer. Our ambassador Heather Small kindly donated some concert tickets and one of our fundraisers is off to see her perform live at the O2 Arena in London.

Luke: There’s also an extra incentive for young people to get involved, isn’t there?

Sophie: Yes, there is. Some of our supporters have said they’ll invite some of the young people who’ve been fundraising for the campaign to come and visit them, so they’ll be putting our fundraisers in the Limelight. Adrian Lester will have someone visit him on the set of Hustle, Toby Anstis will have a visitor at the Heart FM studio and Kevin McCloud will have someone come along to see him.

Luke: We were also luck enough to meet BBC newsreader Nicholas Owen who came in for chat

Sophie: That’s right. Nicholas also had himself photographed drinking a lovely cup of lime tea. And I think he’s following me...

Luke: We’re joined by journalist and broadcaster Nicholas Owen, who’s backing our campaign to turn the nation lime. Nicholas thanks very much for coming in today. Can you tell us why you decided to support our appeal?

Nicholas: It’s a very personal matter really. I adopted a child many years ago - that child is now a hulking great London policeman! One night, when he was very small, we woke up in his cot and could barely breathe. My then-wife and I had no idea what was wrong with him, but it turned out to be asthma. Ever since I’ve been very keen to support all the efforts to try and do something about it. It’s a frightening thing – particularly with very small children. My son ended up in hospital a couple of times, and going to a casualty department with a child who can’t breathe properly is one of life’s most difficult things to endure, I think. Thoroughly alarming, thoroughly frightening and very disruptive I have to say to family life.

Luke: Well that was my next question. Can you recall an occasion when your son might have missed out on opportunities because of his asthma, or that it’s held him back in some way?

Nicholas: I think it did hold him back in the very early days. He was always a very outdoors and active person; he got into the scouts and used to love mountain climbing and walking.  But there were occasions when he just couldn’t do it – he just couldn’t get the breath up to do it. He was fortunate in that the asthma effects seem to trail off as he got older and he was eventually able to go into a very active line of work.

Luke: Was he always good at managing his asthma and keeping it under control?

Nicholas: When he was very small, the burden obviously fell on us as his parents. Later on in life, yes, he became very good at it. He knew exactly when to use his inhaler. I remember one occasion in the hospital when he was using one of these great big bits of kit, and he knew exactly what to do with it, and I was always amazed that a small child seemed to cope with it. But I can tell you that as a parent it was heartbreaking to see that he had to adapt. He adapted fine, but it was difficult for us to cope with.

Luke: Asthma has received a great deal of media attention this month, with the publication of a story that suggests watching too much television can increase children’s asthma risk. Here to tell us more is Dr Elaine Vickers from Asthma UK’s Research team. Elaine thanks for joining us. Can you shed a bit more light on this story?  

Elaine: This study took place in the UK, and it was a study of more than 3,000 children who were studied from birth to the age of eleven-and-a-half. To get an idea of how active or inactive children were the scientists asked parents to tell them how much TV their children were watching. So it wasn’t really about TV, but more about getting an idea about getting an idea of the activity levels of children and using the amount of TV they watched as a marker of that. They found that children who watched more than two hours a day at the age of three-and-a-half were then twice as likely to have asthma at the age of eleven-and-a-half than children who watched less TV.

Luke: So it’s not so much about television as about lack of exercise generally?

Elaine: That’s right, and it really adds to the evidence that activity and exercise are good for us and encourages parents to get their children active as much as possible. There are over 1 million children with asthma in the UK and we really need to understand why this is the case and what parents can do to reduce the asthma risk of their children. Also, we mustn’t forget that exercise is good for all of us and being active a young age does lay down good habits for life. Activity is really good for people with asthma as well. People with asthma who do stay fit and active tend to experience fewer asthma symptoms and they find it easier to keep their asthma under control than people who are unfit. So we really need to encourage everyone to get exercise whether they have asthma or not.