Health and You

Archive for October, 2009

Asthma is known as the traditional disease and have been known since the ancient age. It is about the breathing problem that specifically affecting the flow of air to your lung.

The inflammation will cause the airways to be narrow, so that less air can go through it, in both ways from lung and to lung. Normal symptoms on the narrowing issue include a hissing sound while breathing, breathing problems, chest tightness as well as coughing. The syndrome usually happen during night time and early morning.  Many factors contributing to the asthma including basic problem of allergy, fatigue due to the physical movement, colds because of the whether as well as stress. All those can contribute to the severe asthma.

The one that we cannot avoid is asthma that cause by the genetic. The genes that linked to asthma have important roles in relation to the immune system and the inflammation. The genetic studies however still do not come into a concrete conclusion that the inheritable gene cause the asthma. There has been consistent results from genetic studies across populations – but we are in need of  further investigations regarding this to really into blaming genetic issue because it is the complex interaction and possibility also here.

Can we blame Dad and Mom because of this issue. We cannot control the issue of hereditary but if the science can prove that the genetic is one of the major factor contributing to the asthma, Mom and Dad may be the source to blame for asthma.  The Centers for Disease Control (USA) reported that from the survey conducted, if we have asthmatic parent, the chance of getting asthma increase from 3 to 6 times. The important fact that we cannot reject is the fact that the gene can be contaminated or involve in mutagenesis due to the environmental factors. For an example, as reported last time that the exposure to the endotoxin which is the bacterial product and having the genetic code trait of CD14 (you can refer more on this through the internet) can cause the gene to replicate and can contribute to the asthma as well.

So.. can we blame our parents?

Gaucher disease has become a serious treat to the community nowadays. Even though there are several available treatments to it, the main issue is the cost. Not many people afford to pay the treatment cost. Therefore, looking for an alternative cheap and effective treatment is the main interest of the researchers.

One of the ‘proven working’ treatment is by using enzyme theraphy or specifically using Cerezyme (TM). Amongst the step used in the enzyme theraphy is by using the beta-glucosidase in the inhibitory process. One novel idea is, if we can produce or design a new cheap enzyme to run the inhibitory process by some prosess in the active site. But another novel idea just pop up if we used the reverse process of designing the inhibitor rather than designing the new enzyme.

The idea seems to be good. If we can design such a strong inhibitor (or just search for it), we can reduce the amount of enzyme use for the inhibitory process as well as the amount of inhibitor; thus can reduce the overall cost. We shall see the progress of searching those cheap enzyme and new inhibitors development in shorter time by the advancement of the medical research now. Hopefully those research can be done faster, because the need of efficient and low cost treatment is the priority nowadays.