How GERD Trigger Asthma

Filed in archive Allergy: Research and Development , Asthma on July 24, 2008

Lab experiments with mice by a team from Duke University have discovered why so many patients with asthma also suffer from GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease).



GERD triggers asthma, as recently found:

Working in laboratory experiments with mice, Dr. Shu Lin, an assistant professor of surgery and immunology at Duke, discovered that inhaling tiny amounts of stomach fluid that back up into the esophagus - a hallmark of GERD - produces changes in the immune system that can drive the development of asthma.

In the experiments, researchers inserted miniscule amounts of gastric fluid into the lungs of mice (mimicking the human process of micro-aspiration, or breathing in tiny amounts) over a period of eight weeks. They compared these animals' immune systems with those of mice that were exposed to allergens but not the gastric fluid.

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