Asthmatics Less Able to Fight Off Flu
This is well known which is why Doctors recommend the flu jab for asthmatics.
Newswise — People with asthma are likely to have worse symptoms when they get the flu because they have weaker immune systems, new Southampton research has shown.
A study led by Dr Ben Nicholas, of the University of Southampton, and published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, assessed lung samples from asthmatics and healthy volunteers.
The samples were exposed to influenza and their reactions analysed.
Dr Nicholas, who led the study under the NIHR Southampton Respiratory Biomedical Research Unit, said: “We wanted to look into whether immune system differences explain why asthmatics are more likely to end up in hospital if they get flu than the general population. This is important, as flu can cause a person’s asthma symptoms to get worse. The samples from healthy people showed a strong immune system-triggering reaction to the flu virus. But in lung samples from asthma patients, this reaction was much weaker.
This is well known which is why Doctors recommend the flu jab for asthmatics.
Newswise — People with asthma are likely to have worse symptoms when they get the flu because they have weaker immune systems, new Southampton research has shown.
A study led by Dr Ben Nicholas, of the University of Southampton, and published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, assessed lung samples from asthmatics and healthy volunteers.
The samples were exposed to influenza and their reactions analysed.
Dr Nicholas, who led the study under the NIHR Southampton Respiratory Biomedical Research Unit, said: “We wanted to look into whether immune system differences explain why asthmatics are more likely to end up in hospital if they get flu than the general population. This is important, as flu can cause a person’s asthma symptoms to get worse. The samples from healthy people showed a strong immune system-triggering reaction to the flu virus. But in lung samples from asthma patients, this reaction was much weaker.
