It was once thought that the only things that were to be found in our lungs were our own cells, helping us to live and breathe. But it was discovered that the insides of our lungs are not completely devoid of life and they are actually home to a wide range of organisms including fungi. With that in mind, a new study has found that people with asthma have a different blend of fungi in their lungs compared to people who do not have asthma. This has led experts to believe that this could be a useful direction for developing new treatments for the condition.
The team, from the School of Medicine at Cardiff University, reported their findings in the BMC Infectious Diseases online medical journal. They announced that the analysis found that there are actually very large numbers of fungi present in healthy human lungs, but also that types of fungi found in the lungs of healthy people are different to those found in the lungs of sufferers of asthma.
For the study they looked at two separate groups of people – one group with asthma and one without. In total they found 136 different species of fungi across the two groups. 90 were more common in the people with asthma and 46 were more common in the healthy people.
The study’s main importance is that it identifies fungi in the lungs and has revealed differences between people with asthma and people without. This could mean that further research would be able to more closely analyse the differences. This would hopefully then lead to breakthroughs in treatment that would genuinely make a real difference to all of the people that suffer with the different forms of the condition.
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