I’ve written here before about the “benefits” of having a common, high profile disease like asthma. It means that there is tons of aggressive research and advances in treatment going on almost all of the time. In my lifetime, we’ve seen almost unbelievable increases in our understanding of what happens with asthma and how to control it. Since so many of us have asthma, that’s great news.

Now, the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the premiere U.S. medical journals, reports that recent research has pinpointed a gene that predicts the risk for developing asthma. The gene was first identified in an isolated South Dakota community of Hutterites, a splinter group somewhat similar to the Amish and Mennonites.

But the gene has since been found in other more diverse populations across the U.S. as well. Elizabeth G. Nabel, M.D., director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, states that this new asthma gene “may have important implications in the early identification of, susceptibility to, and prevention and treatment of asthma.”

Learn More:

• Press Release About This Research
• Overview of the Risks of Asthma
• How Asthma Is Diagnosed