Women twice as likely to die from asthma, charity says

Women have made up two-thirds of asthma deaths in the past five years

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Women in the UK with asthma are twice as likely to die from an asthma attack compared to men, a charity has said.

Asthma + Lung UK said that, over the past five years, women have made up more than two-thirds of asthma deaths in the UK.

It found that between 2014/15 and 2019/20, more than 5,100 women in the UK died from an asthma attack compared with 2,300 men.

Emergency hospital admissions in England also show that women aged between 20 and 49 were 2.5 times more likely to be admitted to hospital for asthma treatment than men in the same age brackett.

The charity attributed this imbalance to the current “one size fits all” approach to asthma treatment which it says doesn’t take into account the impact that female sex hormones during puberty, periods, pregnancy and menopause can have on asthma attacks.

It said that more should be done to tackle the “stark health inequality” as most people are “unaware” that fluctuations in female sex hormones can cause asthma symptoms to flare up or even trigger life-threatening attacks.

Chief executive of the charity, Sarah Woolnough, said: “When it comes to research funding, women with asthma have drawn the short straw.

“Gaps in our knowledge are failing women, leaving them struggling with debilitating asthma symptoms, stuck in a cycle of being in and out of hospital and, in some cases, losing their lives.

“By understanding the role of sex hormones in asthma, we could transform the lives of the three million women with the condition in the UK and the many millions of women with asthma across the world.

“We urgently need to see more investment in research in this area so we can find new treatments and better use existing treatments to help millions of women and save lives.”

The charity wants GPs to explore this trigger further with their patients and for more research to be conducted into the inequality.

Additional reporting by PA