Asthma: Risk Factors, Development Conditions, and Solutions (By Paul Paterson)

Asthma is a chronic disease that affects the strength and efficiency of one’s respiratory system and can make individuals more susceptible to airborne contagions, and sometimes resulting in “asthma attacks”. An asthma attack is a sudden worsening of asthma symptoms caused by the tightening of muscles around the airways, resulting in difficulty breathing and other amplified asthma symptoms. Approximately 1 in 13 people have asthma, comprising 7.7 percent of US adults and 8.4 percent of US children, and its prevalence has been increasing since the early 1980s. According to WebMD, about three-fifths of asthma cases are believed to be hereditary due to a family history of asthma, and a person with one or both parents having asthma is three to six times more likely to develop it than someone with no asthmatic parents; other than this fact, here is no known pattern of inheritance that asthma follows. According to GeneCards, the top three genes that influence one’s asthma risk are ORMDL3 (which codes for a number of glycoproteins), ADH1C (which codes for class I alcohol dehydrogenase, which breaks down alcohol in many forms), and SPINK5 (which codes for LEKT1, a type of serine peptidase inhibitor which controls the activity of enzymes that break down other proteins). The exact reasons as to why these genes are correlated to asthma are unknown.

Asthma causes discomfort for many people, so parents may want their children tested to see if they have a susceptibility to asthma. This will allow the parents and children to better prepare and be knowledgeable on the necessary precautions and treatments for dealing with asthma. Currently there is no publicly available genetic test for asthma, as the exact genes behind it are still being identified (but several are in various stages of testing and approval, according to BioNews and Time Healthland), but a number of genes and risk factors are known, allowing doctors to more easily diagnose asthma, and let new parents know that their child may be at risk for asthma. As mentioned before, many genes are known to be correlated to asthma, but a definitive causal link has yet to be determined, so the evidence for a connection between specific variations of genes and SNPs is shaky. In addition, asthma risk can be influenced by environmental factors (such as parental alcoholism, smoking, and atmospheric pollutants), even if there is no family history of asthma.

As mentioned earlier, there is no definitive link between specific genes and asthma risk. As a result, some variations that influence one’s risk may not be identified yet, and others that have been identified may be less important than they are currently believed to be. As a result, once viable tests begin to become available, parents, children, and other individuals will have to be wary with whether they choose to get tested and which test they choose to use.

The main ethical consideration with testing for asthma is how it could potentially be used by health insurance companies against the person being tested and potentially suffering from asthma. If an individual’s health insurance company were to gain access to this information, then they could potentially deny certain coverage based on the customer’s risk for asthma. In addition, parents who know their child may be at risk for asthma could go overboard with their precautions, such as prohibiting their child from doing any sports or other activities for fear of something happening when there are actually plenty of ways for asthmatic children to safely and healthily participate in sports, which would have long-term detriments on children’s fitness and mental health.

Before getting tested for asthma, there are a few things that a family or individual should consider. First is a family history of smoking, alcoholism, and other forms of drug use or addiction. If a mother smokes or drinks alcohol during pregnancy, the child will have a heightened risk for developing asthma, and if a parent smokes during the child’s early development, there is a strong chance that this may result in the child developing asthma due to their environment rather than genes alone. In addition, if an older member of the family had or currently has asthma, there’s a strong chance that the child will too. Should the child test negative, no additional action is necessary. However, if the child tests positive, the family should look into acquiring an inhaler (preventative or reactive) for them and determine whether the child needs nebulizer treatments, in case the child does eventually develop asthma. The severity of their asthma should also be screened for. The parents should cease the use of any tobacco or other smoking-based drugs, as that would risk the child’s health. It would be advised to let a doctor know of the child’s condition.

Asthma is a serious condition, and many parents understandably want to know whether their child is at risk. Unfortunately, the only method currently available is to monitor and manage a child’s environment and conditions – if you have asthma, don’t be surprised if your child develops it too. Parents should always be prepared to care for an asthmatic child, and luckily, it’s not the worst condition a child can end up with.

Works Cited

GeneCards. ORMDL3 Gene. Retrieved from: https://www.genecards.org/cgi-bin/carddisp.pl?gene=ORMDL3

GeneCards. ADH1C Gene. Retrieved from: https://www.genecards.org/cgi-bin/carddisp.pl?gene=ADH1C

GeneCards. SPINK5 Gene. Retrieved from: https://www.genecards.org/cgi-bin/carddisp.pl?gene=SPINK5

Mayo Clinic. Asthma. Retrieved from: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/asthma/symptoms-causes/syc-20369653

BioNews. (2013, January 14). Genetic test for asthma may improve treatment. Retrieved from: https://www.bionews.org.uk/page_93941

Time Healthland. (2013, June 28). Genetic Test Could Predict Which Kids Will Have Lasting Asthma Symptoms. Retrieved from: http://healthland.time.com/2013/06/28/genetic-test-could-predict-which-kids-will-have-lasting-asthma-symptoms/

WebMD. Asthma Risk Factors. Retrieved from: https://www.webmd.com/asthma/asthma-risk-factors#1

Climate Simulation – Paul Paterson

I’ve always loved simulation activities. So when I heard we were going to be doing a climate simulation, I got very excited. I’ve always thought that interactive forms of learning are more interesting than just listening to a lecture.

For the simulation, my table was assigned to the role of “Other Developed Nations”. This included developed nations other than the US that were not part of the EU, such as Canada and Japan. Initially, we only pledged a few billion dollars – we were expecting other developed nations to do their part. Unfortunately, they weren’t having it. In the first round, the US only gave 17 dollars. Not 17 billion, just 17. In addition, many developing nations were unable to pledge as much money as the developed world, and even needed money to be given to them by others. It became quite obvious that something had to change.

So we decided we were going to help, by increasing our pledge from 2 billion dollars to 20 billion. This would allow us to contribute more to developing nations (who, may I add, were very calm and had a very well-thought-out explanation of where the funds would go). In addition, we increased our efforts with regard to preventing deforestation, encouraging afforestation, and decreasing emissions. As we convinced other developed nations to join us in doing the same, the estimate of how high global temperature would get by 2100 kept getting smaller and smaller. We were succeeding.

From this activity, I learned two things: the first is that selfishness is a big barrier, but that everyone is subject to it. It’s easy to see someone acting in their own best interest and dismiss them as selfish. But when you start acting in your own self-interest, you ignore the people calling you selfish. This isn’t to say that acting in one’s own self-interest is a good or bad thing, but sometimes everybody needs to realize that you can both act in your own self-interest and submit to compromise. Second is that while individuals can’t directly influence the decisions of major bodies like the UN, individuals can do their part by taking awareness of their actions while governments and corporations battle it out over emissions and climate change. Eventually, these contributions will add up, and hopefully, corporations will eventually be regulated, whether by governments or by themselves.

Paul Paterson – Rivers Alive Cleanup

Oops, forgot to do this one a while back!

For my outreach, I visited the Rivers Alive Watershed cleanup event on the 5th of October. As you can see in the image above, during this event we gathered a lot of trash from the riverbed of the Oconee River. Metal, plastic, electronics – one of the biggest things we hauled out was an old TV filled with dirt and having vines growing out of it. We also pulled a screen door, a bicycle frame, and many other interesting things out of the ground. To be honest, I didn’t know much about what we would be doing beforehand – I just knew where to go, when to go there, and to come ready to get dirty.

I learned a lot from this activity, one of those being the sheer amount of trash that the cleanup location had. It was near a few apartment blocks, as well as a frat house, so it would make sense for there to be a lot of garbage, but I was still surprised at just how much there really was. Beer bottles and cans, diapers, disposable food packaging, etc. If there weren’t an organized activity to clean this place up, what would have happened to it? Things would continue to pile up until it’s no longer a riverbed, but a landfill that just so happens to have a river near it. But while I was cleaning, I spoke to some of the other participants. Some of them had been doing this activity every year for as long as they’d been in Athens, others were immigrants to the US who were helping as a way to get to know the Athens area. Others were students at UGA from an English graduate student program. But despite all being very different people, they had one thing in common: they were good people who felt motivated to help. And despite the fact that there was way more trash than I expected at the site, the presence of these amazing people gives me some hope.

I definitely feel that this experience was very interesting. I was in Beta Club in high school, so I’ve done volunteering in the past, but for Beta I was mostly doing activities I knew I would enjoy and was kind of just looking to finish my required 20 hours of service. I never really pushed myself or left my comfort zone, so this activity was a good push. Because I enjoyed it, I think I now feel more confident in leaving my comfort zone more often, which will allow me to do more things I wouldn’t have in the past. In addition, it was informative; I learned more than I did before about recycling, disposal of trash, and, as mentioned before, just how much stuff people throw away in improper places. I think that in the future I’ll probably make a conscious decision to actually pay more attention to littering in places like riverbeds and greenways, because seeing how much trash there was was very saddening to me.

Volunteering in this event caused me to have a shift in my feeling towards my environment. I’ve always felt that the corporate individualization of blame and deflection of responsibility onto consumers was the biggest problem, and while I still feel that, I now know that there is actually something that people can do to help. I’m now more motivated to learn about opportunities to help and even participate in those opportunities. I truly do plan on helping with these sorts of things more in the future.

Introductions – Paul Paterson

(As a note, I am SO sorry for not having posted this earlier! I could have sworn I posted it, but I guess it was just sitting in my drafts for a long time.)

Hi, my name is Paul Paterson and I’m a freshman honors student majoring in Mechanical Engineering with a double minor in Physics & Astronomy as well as Computer Science. The following picture is one of my friends and I at the Bubble Cafe downtown. I am the front left person.

1. As an engineering student, science is one of the most important fields in my studies, along with math and pure engineering. In addition, the depth to which science can explain the world around us has always fascinated me. Science also shows us how little we know about many things, while providing the tools to learn everything about them. I took 4 AP science classes in high school (Chemistry, Computer Science A, Physics C – Mechanics, and Physics C – Electricity and Magnetism) and numerous honors classes in scientific disciplines. My personal favorites were my two AP Physics and my Honors Robotics courses, as they solidified my desire to work in engineering, specifically aerospace engineering (which is simply a sub-type of mechanical engineering). This is my only pure science course this semester, but I will likely be taking several more in the future.

2. Through this course, I hope to advance my knowledge of biology and be able to apply that knowledge to projects not directed related to biology at all. Recent developments in robotics, computing, structural and mechanical engineering, and more have been increasingly based upon principles found in nature. We have so much to learn from the world around us here on Earth that can help us get to places beyond our home, such as our moon and Mars, and I hope to learn how to utilize that untapped potential.

3. The projects that interest me most are probably the watershed visit (because I can learn about the engineering behind it) and the visit to Clarke Central (because I grew up in this area and would be interested to see how it is affected by the things we will learn about in this class). In addition, these activities would give us the experience and knowledge to further teach our communities about biology.

Watershed Reflections – Paul Paterson

In this picture, you can see a metal sculpture that had been placed in a ditch just outside of the Lamar Dodd School of Art. When I look at it, I immediately notice that the metal is rusted, meaning quite a bit of water has touched most of the sculpture. This means that despite the ditch looking relatively shallow and wide, it does its job of directing water to the main channel quite well. I also notice that the structure looks somewhat like a cornucopia, possibly symbolizing the positive effects that a proper watershed network can have on a community. I wonder if this was constructed where it was due to the insight or ideas of an art student with interests in biology, agriculture, or something else having to do with watersheds.