A new perspective on asthma's underlying causes

Asthma - New View of Asthma's Cause: A Critique

The article "A New View of Asthma's Cause" in the March 15, 2006 issue of Press Room is a summary of an article in New England Journal of Medicine telling about the discovery of the role a certain type of immune cell plays in causing asthma, explaining why certain people have asthma and why some therapies fail to cure it. Reviewing what the devastating disease is, the article also gave the statistics of its effects on 20 million people. This answered the question of "what is asthma?"

In an unexpected discovery using mice, Dr. Dale Umetsu, an immunologist, and Dr. Omid Akbari, found that previously suspect conventional T. helper type 2 cells (Th2 cells) were not the cause of the disease and the medications given to kill Th2 cells were targeting the wrong cells. First finding NKT (Natural Killer T cells) cells only in asthmatic mice, and in repeated variations of the study in mice, they believed the presence of NKT cells is required for the disease to affect humans and cause asthma. This answered the question of "what actually causes asthma?" Believing they had found what the cause was, the doctors then moved on to study humans. (Newton 1)

The controlled studies were done on 25 adults with bronchial asthma, 6 healthy subjects and 5 patients with sarcoidosis (a respiratory inflammatory disease). Examination of specimens from these subjects showed that NKT cells were virtually absent in the lungs of the healthy subjects and those with sarcoidosis, while at least two-thirds of the asthma patients' pulmonary T-cells were actually NKT cells, not conventional Th2 cells. Evidently, NKT cells create cytokines, just as T-cells do, but additionally induce asthma, whereas normal T-cells do not. Just how the NKT cells create asthma is still not clear, but this finding leads the way to developing new therapies that may cure asthma. This answered the question of "how do you try to fight the disease?" (Conger 1)