William Atkins
Saturday, 14 February 2009 04:12
Science -
Health
Page 2 of 3
In addition, this common-cold news is very likely to help the millions of asthma sufferers all around the world, since asthma attacks are frequently set off by the common cold virus.
In fact, Liggett began the research in the hope of finding a connection between colds and asthma.
He stated,
"It became clear that there was a missing link here, About 50 percent of all asthma attacks are caused by rhinovirus infections. So we needed to understand more about it. Like it or not, it’s part of the equation.” [Bloomberg: “
Cure for Common Cold May Result From Virus DNA Search (Update1)”]
However, don’t throw away your tissues and your cold and allergy medicines just yet. Although, this decoding process has been completed, a cure for the common cold is not expected to be coming for quite a bit longer.
In other words, don’t hold your breathe too long.
For the time being, the successful mapping of the genetic blueprint of the rhinovirus will help medical researchers better understand how the common cold is passed from person to person, how the virus enters our body to make us sick, how it changes (mutates) over time, and how to better fight its nasty symptoms.
A cure, though, is probably years off in the future.
Page three concludes with a comment from Dr. Palmenberg about their work with these strains of cold rhinoviruses.
