Stress-related ageing linked to asthma, Queen's University research finds

Approximately, 890,000 people in Ireland experience asthma at some stage of their life and around 380,000 currently have the conditio.

Signs of faster stress-related ageing have been found among people with asthma.

Researchers from Queen’s University Belfast used allostatic load, a measure of early ageing, or wear and tear, in adults with and without asthma.

They found that a person diagnosed with mild asthma had an allostatic load equivalent to a person without asthma who is eight years older.

The wear and tear in a 52-year-old with mild asthma had an allostatic load equivalent to a 60-year-old who did not have the condition.

The large-scale study of just under 10,000 people with and without asthma, was published in the peer-reviewed medical journal, Thorax.

Chronic stress has been identified as a risk factor in the development or worsening of many chronic conditions as well as asthma.

Approximately, 890,000 people in Ireland experience asthma at some stage of their life and around 380,000 currently have the condition.

According to the Asthma Society of Ireland, one person dies every six days as a result of their asthma.

The research team used data that measured levels of stress-related biomarkers in the blood in each participant.

They found that those with moderate asthma had a higher allostatic load than those without asthma, though this may be confounded by the use of anti-inflammatory treatment.

Lead author, Luke Barry, believes that understanding the stress-disease link is important for the management of asthma and in potentially reducing the lifetime burden.

“Our aim with this research is to encourage clinicians to consider stress resilience as part of an individual’s healthcare plan or treatment," he points out.

Senior author and professor of respiratory medicine at Queen’s University, Liam Heaney, says modern lifestyles and social inequalities are important drivers of stress-related diseases, including asthma.

“Stress resilience may be something that could help patients in their daily lives to reduce the effects of chronic disease, and potential worsening of pre-existent chronic conditions,” he says.

Prof Heaney says practices, such as mindfulness-based cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) have been shown to promote stress-resilience and may be an important way to protect against the impacts of chronic disease.

The researchers say they cannot infer a “causal association” between asthma and raised allostatic load but there does appear to be a stress-disease link that is not explained by medical treatment.

The allostatic load has been shown to predict the development of many stress-related diseases that overlap with asthma.

The Asthma Society of Ireland, says this year people with asthma and hay fever also have the added concern that they might have Covid-19.

The society’s medical director, Dr Marcus Butler, says sneezing that is associated with hay fever is not considered to be a symptom of the coronavirus.

“In Covid-19 cases, the patients will usually experience a high temperature and frequently Covid-19 patients have muscle aches and pains, and neither of these symptoms are typically associated with hay fever," says Dr Butler.

Dr Butler says anyone concerned about whether their symptoms are related to Covid-19 or hay fever should call their GP.

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