• Question: do animals get asthma

    Asked by ludo4444 to Jen, Jill, Mel, Phil, Stef on 15 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Stefan Piatek

      Stefan Piatek answered on 15 Mar 2013:

      Ah hello, this looks like a question I should be all over.

      Depends on the animals, Cats and dogs can get asthma but something like mice don’t actually get asthma. On saying that, we can put mice under conditions that make their bodies act very similar to asthma, which some people use to learn more about what happens in asthma and how we could treat it better.

      The reason why mice do get asthma and cats do is probably because mice are more simple. This means that their fighter cells aren’t as specialised as other animals, so they don’t naturally end up acting like they do in human asthma.

      Hope that helps.

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