Asthma treatment now relies on drugs that help open airways and keep them open. They are called long-acting beta agonists, or LABAs, and include salmeterol found in Advair and formoterol in Symbicort. FDA has put a black box warning on LABA drugs because studies have shown they can increase the risk of death from asthma.
Now researchers at Wake Forest University have identified variations in genes coding for the beta receptor that put patients at higher risk of trouble from LABAs. The 5% or so of patients with the variant genes were twice as likely to be admitted to the hospital with a complication of asthma. It may be possible in the future to determine which patients will really benefit from treatment with LABAs and which might be more likely to suffer harm.
[Lancet Respiratory Medicine, online Jan. 27, 2014]
Some people with hard-to-treat asthma may be reacting to a persistant bacterial infection of the lungs that can be difficult to detect. David Hahn, MD, has written about this condition and offers an alternative treatment protocol to cure the infection and eliminate the wheezing in his book, A Cure for Asthma? What Your Doctor Isn’t Telling You–and Why.
