TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, are potentially life-threatening lung conditions that make it difficult to breathe. Roughly 40 years ago, the University of Arizona decided theories that asthma and COPD could have causes originating in early life needed to be studied, so a decades long study was started.
In 1980, researchers at the Asthma and Airway Disease Research Center started a study centered on discovering the early-life origins of asthma. From 1980 to 1984, 1,246 healthy babies were thrown into into the Tucson Children’s Respiratory Study. Fernando D. Martinez, MD, director of the University of Arizona Health Sciences Asthma and Airway Disease Research Center, joined the research team only a few years later, and researchers are still following more than 700 of those babies, who are now adults in their 40s.
“This person this is 1200 people most of them born at TMC were not selected in anyway they just randomly came up between 1980 and 1984 that long ago to have their children and we contacted them," Martinez said. "Our nurses explained the study and they agreed to participate and from that point we started seeing who developed asthma and why.”
Martinez said future studies will examine the genetic factors persistent in asthma and COPD, as well as other determinants of lung-function decline in adult life.
"The Tucson Children’s Respiratory Study babies are now middle-aged adults," the university said. "Thanks to their extended participation and scientists’ commitment to the project, the research – and the discoveries – will continue to help millions of people with asthma and COPD for decades to come.
