Study: The ratio of circulatory levels of sphingolipids to steroids predicts asthma exacerbations. Image Credit: Prostock-studio / Shutterstock
In a recent study in the journal Nature Communications, researchers analyzed medical records and blood samples from over 2,500 biobank participants with asthma to identify a novel predictive biomarker for future asthma exacerbations. The study used a metabolomics approach and found that the ratio of circulating sphingolipids (a type of fat) to steroids (hormones) is a strong discriminator of subsequent exacerbation risk.
The identified metabolite ratio was found to predict the five-year risk of asthma exacerbations with approximately 89–90% discriminative performance (area under the curve, AUC) when combined with selected clinical variables, significantly…