Quadruple doses of steroids reduce acute asthma attacks in adults.

In accordance with the recent research, one can reduce acute asthma attacks by increasing the content of steroids in inhaler.
In previous research led by scientists at the University of Nottingham the inhaling of double doses was not efficient in preventing the frequency of dangerous asthma attacks. Therefore, NIHR funded a new study in order to find out if quadrupling of steroid doses can be more beneficial.
About 300 million suffer from asthma throughout the world. One should mention that acute attack of this disease can lead to definite health issues and even death. Let alone the costs of asthma to health services. During acute asthma attack patients require hospitalization, oxygen treatment, bronchodilators and high doses of steroids which may cause adverse effects.

How it was discovered

In accordance with official reports, in the United Kingdom 3 patients die from asthma daily. However, one can prevent two thirds of the deaths if the patients have written asthma action plan with outlined medications they have to take.
During the study, which involved about 2000 patients from UK, scientists compared 2 asthma self-management plans. Half of the patients got a plan, which included inhaling of quadruple doses of steroids, and the other half had a usual self-care plan.
The experiment revealed that those who had quadruple doses of steroids had 20% asthma attack reduction in comparison with the usual care group.

Conclusions

Prof. Tim Harrison, Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre, said that four-fold increase of inhaled steroids leads to less necessity for oral steroids (for example prednisolone). Also it causes less cases of hospitalization and fewer cases of death.
This innovative approach can make big difference to 5.4 million asthma sufferers in the UK. Besides, it can greatly improve the quality of life of asthma patients worldwide. However, those who want to increase their dose should consult with heath care professionals first.