Asthma Patients Not At Higher Risk Of Contracting COVID-19 Or Developing Serious Illness: Study

One in 13 Americans has asthma. While the pandemic is scary for everyone, people with asthma have a greater fear that they might be at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19 or suffer from a worse outcome compared to others. New research has pointed out that the chronic lung disease does not seem to increase the risk of contracting COVID-19, which has known to severely affect the respiratory system of patients.

The experts at Rutgers University in their study "Asthma and COVID: What are the Important Questions?" pointed out that factors such as older age and underlying ailments including heart disease, hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes and obesity are reported risk factors of COVID-19 development and progression.

"However, people with asthma--even those with diminished lung function who are being treated to manage asthmatic inflammation--seem to be no worse affected by SARS-CoV-2 than a non-asthmatic person. There is limited data as to why this is the case--if it is physiological or a result of the treatment to manage the inflammation," News Medical quoted Reynold A. Panettieri Jr, Study co-Author, Pulmonary Critical Care Physician and Director of Translational Medicine and Science at Rutgers University.

Corticosteroid inhalers commonly used by asthma patients might reduce the virus’s ability to cause an infection. In vitro models suggested that ciclesonide (a glucocorticoid used to treat asthma and allergic rhinitis) reduces SARS-CoV-2 replication.

The enzyme ACE2 (angiotensin-converting enzyme 2) enables the virus to attach to the host cells. And corticosteroids help decrease the levels of this enzyme and therefore, the virus has fewer chances of attaching to the host cells.

However, further research is needed to conclude if inhaled steroids in asthma patients can decrease the risk of coronavirus infection.

Children and young individuals with asthma suffer only from allergic inflammation, whereas older asthmatic patients could experience a more severe form called eosinophilic asthma where abnormally high levels of a type of white blood cells will be detected.

The study also highlighted the fact that asthma is associated with far fewer comorbidities compared to cardiovascular disease or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

"If SARS-CoV-2 is a disease manifested by systemic consequences of endothelial cell dysfunction, then diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and other diseases associated with endothelial dysfunction may engender more susceptibility than asthma,” said the researchers in their paper published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology,

The researchers believe that older asthma patients who also have underlying ailments like diabetes, high blood pressure or cardiovascular conditions may manifest similar incidences of COVID-19.