Women with asthma are twice as likely to die from an asthma attack as men in the UK, new figures show, as health experts have called for urgent research into gender differences.
They are more likely to have the disease, more likely to need hospital treatment for it and more likely to die from an attack, say Asthma + Lung UK. In the last five years, women have caused more than two-thirds of asthma deaths in the UK.
The charity said the current one-size-fits-all approach to treating asthma “doesn’t work” because it doesn’t take into account the impact that female sex hormones can have on asthma symptoms and attacks during puberty, periods, pregnancy and menopause. . More needs to be done to tackle “high health inequalities”, he added.
In childhood, asthma is more common and severe in boys. However, after puberty the situation is completely reversed, say Asthma + Lung UK.
Between 2014-15 and 2019-20, more than 5,100 women in the UK died of asthma attacks, compared to less than 2,300 men. Meanwhile, emergency hospital admissions in England show that women between the ages of 20 and 49 are 2.5 times more likely to be admitted to hospital for asthma than men.
Asthma + Lung UK said many people were unaware that fluctuations in female sex hormones could trigger asthma symptoms or even cause life-threatening attacks. This requires more research to investigate gender differences in asthma.
30-year-old Poppy Hudkinson, a TV presenter from Stratford-upon-Avon, said her asthma worsened when she reached puberty. “I was diagnosed with asthma at the age of 11, which, looking back, was when I was in the middle of puberty,” she said. “Over the next decade, I had regular asthma attacks and would be hospitalized up to six times a year.
“There seemed to be a pattern of my symptoms related to my menstrual cycle. Almost every month on the eve of my period, I really got asthma. The symptoms made me struggle to breathe, which was horrifying, and I often ended up in the hospital.
“The asthma attacks I had were so severe that I was ventilated four times by the age of 22 and wondered if I would make it to my next birthday. She later started using a life-changing biologic, omalizumab.
“We need to better understand how asthma affects women so we can find treatments that will bring back the lives of women like me,” she said.
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Asthma + Lung UK encourages GPs to explore potential triggers with their patients and create personalized adjustments to the patient’s treatment regimen. Women are also encouraged to take their preventative medications as prescribed, to make sure they attend their annual asthma check-up, and to keep a diary of symptoms that could help identify triggers.
Asthma + Lung UK CEO Sarah Woolnough said: “When it comes to funding research, women with asthma have pulled the short straw. The gaps in our knowledge are unsuccessful women, which makes them struggle with debilitating asthma symptoms, stuck in a cycle of entering and leaving the hospital, and in some cases losing their lives.
“By understanding the role of sex hormones in asthma, we could change the lives of 3 million women with the disease in the United Kingdom and many millions of women with asthma worldwide. We urgently need to see more investment in research in this area so that we can find new treatments and make better use of existing treatments to help millions of women and save lives. “
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