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IN 2010 AN American girl called Emily Whitehead developed a form of leukaemia that is usually terminal. She was five years old. Two years later, she became the first paediatric patient to be offered a form of treatment called CAR-T, in which the body's immune system is reprogrammed to attack cancerous cells. The treatment worked. A documentary film about her journey, released in 2022, was called "Of Medicine and Miracles".

Women With Asthma More Likely To Miscarry And Need Fertility Treatment, Reveals Research

Women who are being treated for asthma are more likely to miscarry and need fertility treatment to get pregnant, according to a large study presented at the European Respiratory Society (ERS) Congress in Vienna, Austria. However, the study also suggests that most women with asthma are able to have babies.

The study was presented by Dr Anne Vejen Hansen from the department of respiratory medicine at Copenhagen University Hospital, Denmark.

She said: "Asthma is common in women of reproductive age. Previous studies have shown that it takes women with asthma longer to get pregnant than those without asthma when undergoing fertility treatment, and that asthmatic women who succeed in getting pregnant have more often had fertility treatment than non-asthmatic women. But most existing studies are on women who have actually got pregnant, so we wanted to examine fertility outcomes on a national scale, to also include those that might not become pregnant at all."

The team analysed reproductive outcomes for all Danish women born from 1976 to 1999, following them from 1994 to 2017. In total, 769,880 women were included and followed; anyone who took anti-asthma medication on a regular basis was classified as asthmatic.

They found that women with asthma experienced a higher degree of foetal loss compared to women without asthma (17.0% vs. 15.7%) and more use of fertility treatment (5.6% vs. 5.0%). However, the proportion who subsequently gave birth was 77% in women with and without asthma, suggesting that asthma does not seem to affect the number of live births.

Dr Vejen Hansen said: "We found that women fulfilling the definition of asthma had a higher rate of foetal loss and an increased use of fertility treatment. The more severe the asthma and the more flare ups the women experienced, the more likely they were to need fertility treatment. Why this is, is not clear. It might be related to systemic inflammation throughout the body, including women's reproductive organs.

"But the numbers also show that these same women who redeem asthma medication still have as many live births in the end as women who don't. This suggests that most women with asthma probably do manage to become pregnant and have babies in the end.

"We also plan to investigate the possible effect of male asthma on fertility, and, therefore, have another similar registry-based study in the pipeline."

Professor Lena Uller is Chair of the ERS group on Airway Pharmacology and Treatment and Head of the Respiratory Immunopharmacology research group at Lund University, Sweden, and was not involved in the research. She said: "It's reassuring that women seem to have the same live birth rate regardless of their asthma. However, the results also indicate that women with asthma should take into consideration potential reproductive challenges in their family planning. If women with asthma are worried about their fertility, they should speak to their doctor.

"The results of this study also underscore the importance of managing asthma in reproductive-aged women. The fact that the more severe the asthma, the more the problems with fertility, suggests that uncontrolled asthma is the problem and we should be helping women to get their asthma under control."

Reference:

Women with asthma are more likely to miscarry and need fertility treatment, European Respiratory Society, Meeting: ERS Congress.

Acne And Asthma Sufferers To Be Cleared To Join Army

[PA Media]

People with asthma or severe acne will no longer be banned from joining Britain's armed forces, Defence Secretary John Healey has said.

Healey said he wanted to scrap "outdated policies" that block people from joining the army to end a recruitment crisis.

In a speech to Labour's annual conference, he also announced plans to get computer gamers to join a new cyber defence effort.

"If you are a top gamer - your country needs you," Healey told Labour activists in Liverpool.

Labour claims the British Army is at its smallest size in 200 years.

It says a 6% pay increase announced in July will boost recruitment - but it also wants to speed up the process and scrap "outdated" restrictions.

Anyone wanting to join the army has to pass a tough medical. People with heart problems, back problems, hearing or vision problems, among other things, will struggle to make the grade.

But a range of other conditions can also affect candidates' chances of being accepted.

"Candidates with acne that may affect the ability to wear military clothing or to operate military equipment should normally be graded UNFIT, or entry should be deferred until the disease has been successfully treated," says a Ministry of Defence briefing note from 2019.

In its latest medical rules, the army says: "Generally speaking, if you require treatment for asthma you will not be eligible. If you have had treatment in the past, then it will depend how long ago that was, how old you were at the time, what your symptoms were, and how much and how long you needed treatment for."

The rules on asthma - and all medical conditions - are regularly updated and are often considered on a case-by-case basis during the appeals process, it adds.

Over the past five years, "medical reasons" have become the main reason for rejection in the British Army, with a total of 76,187 applicants disqualified on these grounds.

Healey is also keen to recruit gamers to the army's ranks, telling the Sun that hours spent playing Call of Duty could prove useful to a new cyber defence initiative.

"We are short of drone pilots," the defence secretary said.

"You can see the changing nature of warfare in Ukraine, where the combination of artillery and drones is responsible for the large majority of all the casualties.

"The sort of skills that drone pilots have are many of the same skills as some of our best console warriors are okay [at] in civilian life."

According to the latest Ministry of Defence figures, there were 74,296 members of the regular Army – down from 79,330 in October 2019.

The previous government relaxed restrictions on beards and facial hair in an effort to boost recruitment.

In a speech to the Labour conference on Monday, Healey said Labour would "always maintain the highest standards.

"We will create an Armed Forces that draws the very best of British talent. Better fit to fight. Better reflecting the country they defend."

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