Asthma is a condition which people give very little thought to because of how common it is. There’s an asthmatic child in every five family units and two in the average classroom. For something which is seen so much you’d expect the treatment to be fairly standard and effective, you wouldn’t’ expect much in the way of failure. What’s recently become apparent is that, due to a genetic abnormality in certain peoples DNA the most generically used asthma medication doesn’t affect them.
In these cases the more general approach may actually cause the patients much more harm than good. Without the positive effects of the drugs those treated will only get the side effects which, as with all drugs can be extremely detrimental to health and well-being. Scientists have been working on a solution for a while and in the last few months one has become apparent.
By using a commonly available spit test they can identify patients who harbour this different genetic marker and immediately halt the treatment which may damage them, once this is accomplished they can move these people onto a slightly different treatment which works just as well at maintaining the respiratory system on them as the traditional treatments work on other people. This would mean a massive leap in the quality of living and the chance for these people to get much more of a handle on their condition than ever before.
The treatment, testing and medications for those who’ve got this specific genetic marker are well under way in clinical trials. It’s all there but it may be a little while until this is transferred into public usage. Hopefully we should see treatment like this within the next year and before we know it asthmatics everywhere will be receiving the same standard and quality of treatment!
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