Is a Common Fungus Causing Asthma?

Asthma is no joke. The respiratory disease affects 5.4 million people in the UK, with a quarter of a million suffering severely from the condition. Given these shocking statistics, it’s fair to say any insight into the causes would be very welcome. And the latest research may have found exactly that. Read on for an introduction to “pichia” – the fungus that may be causing asthma.

What is pichia?

Recent developments in asthma research have revealed that exposure to some bacteria can protect infants from developing the disease. This important finding will help scientists and asthma sufferers in two ways:

·         The presence or lack of certain bacteria will give scientists biomarkers with which they can diagnose asthma from a young age

·         Knowing what makes the disease less likely could allow scientists to develop a treatment for asthma prevention

But when the University of Columbia’s team of researchers investigated this idea, they found more than just preventative bacteria. Pichia, a yeast fungus found in infant guts, has been shown to increase the likelihood of asthma in babies.

Comparing Canada and Ecuador

Originally, the team had studied the gut bacteria of Canadian infants. They found that four bacteria in the gut had some protective quality against asthma. But to get a better understanding, they decided to compare this with another country – Ecuador.

After sampling 100 infants’ gut microbes in Ecuador, the scientists left five years for the infants (aged less than a year old) to develop. Five years on, they found some results similar to the first study, but the most outstanding was that of pichia. Rather than protecting the infants from asthma, it made them more likely to develop the disease.

Moving forward

The next step is to test specifically for pichia in the Canadian samples. But following that, scientists will be looking to find out more about pichia. Some species of the fungus are found in soil, while others are found in dairy products like milk and cheese.

If it is a food based strand, researchers will be able to use methods like gas chromatography – as discussed in the article ‘Healthy Fat in Chips and Sausages? A new Method for Extraction, Digestion and Analysis of Fat in Food Samples’ – to pinpoint exactly which foods are to blame. We may eventually have a list of foods that need to be avoided to prevent asthma.