麻豆约拍

Asthma is a breathing condition that causes wheezing, coughing and breathlesness and is said to affect 136 million women worldwide. Even mild asthma can be debilitating, but serious attacks are said to kill as many as 1,000 people every day.

Researchers say that the reason for this is the effect of women's sex hormones, which influences symptoms and attacks. They say current treatments don't take hormone changes around puberty, periods, pregnancy and menopause into account. Dr Samantha Walker, an asthma specialist and lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, says that more treatments should be developed to tackle the increased severity of asthma on women.

"More women have ashtma, more women die of asthma, more women have severe asthma"

Photo: A woman using an asthma inhaler while out walking Credit: Getty Images