This week Allergy Cosmos spoke with Dr Patrick O’Brien as part of our series of interviews with allergy and asthma experts across the UK. It is our hope that reading about these experts' opinions and research work will provide you with valuable insight into your own life with allergy, asthma and general air pollution.

Dr Patrick O’Brien is the spokesperson for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and Consultant and Senior Lecturer in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at University College London Hospitals. He spoke to Allergy Cosmos about allergy and asthma during pregnancy.

Q. If you are pregnant and have asthma or another allergic condition, is it safe to carry on with your medication? Do any of the drugs you might be using pose a risk to the unborn

This week Allergy Cosmos spoke with Professor Jon Ayres as part of our series of interviews with allergy, asthma and air pollution experts across the UK. It is our hope that reading about these experts' opinions and research work will provide you with valuable insight into your own life with allergy, asthma and general air pollution.

Jon Ayres, is Professor of Environmental and Respiratory Medicine at the University of Birmingham. Prof. Ayres received his science and medical degrees at Guys Hospital, London, and has been in his post at the University of Birmingham since 2008. He currently heads the Institute of Occupational and Environmental Medicine which is part of the School of Health and Population Sciences. He also chairs two government advisory committees - the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollution (COMEAP) and the Advisory Committee on Pesticides (ACP).

Dr. Susan Aldridge: "What is COMEAP's brief?"

Professor Jon Ayres: "COMEAP is a government advisory body formed in the early

As part of our series of interviews with allergy and asthma experts across the UK, we spoke with Ms. Delia Balan, an asthma nurse specialist at Asthma UK. It is our hope that reading about allergy and asthma specialists, their work and favoured treatments, and what they think about the future of allergy and asthma treatment will provide you with valuable insight into your own allergy and asthma treatment options.

Ms. Balan, how would you describe your work in the asthma field?

I am part of a small friendly team of asthma nurse specialists who provide independent confidential advice and support to people with asthma, their families, friends and carers and also healthcare professionals. We receive queries about what asthma is and what causes it, triggers, symptoms, treatments and inhaler devices. We're also often asked about allergies, exercise, diet, housing

We spoke with Dr. Mike Thomas as part of our series of interviews with allergy and asthma experts across the UK. It is our hope that reading about these physicians' practices or research work, their favoured treatments, and what they have to say about the future of allergy and asthma treatment will provide you with valuable insight into your own allergy and asthma treatment options.

Dr. Mike Thomas trained in medicine in London. After several junior hospital posts, including a time working on a hospital chest unit, Dr. Thomas became a GP in the Cotswolds in 1989. He also works a clinic a week in the local hospital chest unit outpatient's clinic. For the other 50% of his time Dr. Thomas is the Asthma UK Senior Research Fellow with the University of Aberdeen. He undertakes research in asthma, allergies and other lung diseases, and has published over 70 research papers in medical journals. Dr. Thomas is the Chief Medical Advisor to the charity Read More

Did you know that some research has shown that babies born to women with low levels of vitamin E in their blood are more likely to suffer wheezing and asthma? This might make you think that it would be a good idea to take a vitamin E supplement during pregnancy - just in case.

"Premature babies tend to be deficient in antioxidants and suffer from oxygen stress, so we thought that they might benefit if their mothers received vitamins during pregnancy," says Professor Anne Greenough of King's College, London. "We also thought that giving mothers antioxidants might help improve lung growth and function in their babies."

Funded by Asthma UK, Prof. Greenough and colleagues at Imperial College, followed up the multi-centre Vitamins in Pregnancy study which included a number of women under the care of St Thomas' Hospital, London. The aim of this study was to prevent pre-eclampsia (high blood pressure in pregnancy) and the 643 women took either high

"Allergy & Asthma Relief in the UK" is our series of interviews with allergy and asthma specialists across the UK. It is our hope that reading about different physicians, researchers and charities will provide you with valuable insight into your live with allergy and asthma in the UK.

This week we spoke with Professor Chris Corrigan. Professor Corrigan is based at Guy's Hospital, King's College London School of Medicine.

Susan: "Professor Corrigan, what is it like to work as an allergist in the UK?"

Prof. Corrigan: "I am delighted to be an allergist. Allergists in the UK are quite a rare breed. They have not flourished as they have in just about every other country, with the result that main parts of the UK are bereft of allergy specialists."

Susan: "Why is that?"

Prof. Corrigan: "Many doctors are frightened of allergic conditions because they do not understand them fully. This

If you do not have asthma, you don’t know what it can be like to live with the panic, terror, and feelings of suffocation, according to Richard Corrigan, Professor of Asthma, Allergy and Respiratory Science at Guy’s Hospital London. Prof Corrigan, who specialises in looking after the 10% of asthma patients who do not get better, was talking at this month’s British Science Festival. He paid tribute to the people with asthma who have helped with his research over the last 20 years by volunteering for bronchoscopies that have yielded valuable biopsy material.

Prof Corrigan’s work with the microscope has led him to believe that it is easier to describe the pathology of asthma than explain why some people develop it and some do not. Until our understanding of asthma advances, it has to be faced that it affects 5.4 million people in the UK. Most asthma is well-controlled but the grim reality is that 1,204 people, of whom 29 were children under 14, died from asthma in 2008, said Prof