Women who are elderly white, thin and non-smoking are more vulnerable to lung infections than other women, with Mycobacterium avium complex and few other non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM). Suppression of their cough is the main cause of such disease in these women.

A study has postulated that patients with pulmonary NTM (pNTM) infections might have rehabilitated cough physiology as compared to the unpretentious control participants. Cough was persuaded by a small dose of capsaicin to evaluate the cough reflex in pNTM subjects. Nearly 8 aged white females with steady chronic pNTM infections and 6 unaffected age-matched control participants were registered. No noteworthy difference was seen between groups in capsaicin-elicited cough motor response, cough frequency or airflow pattern. The urge-to-cough (UTC) score at the lowest capsaicin concentration was suggestively lower in pNTM as compared to the control participants (P < 0.05).

No major differences were seen in the UTC score between pNTM and control participants at >50 μM capsaicin. The outcomes recommended the lower UTC sensitivity to the lowest capsaicin concentration in pNTM as compared to the control participants.

The study has assessed the cough sensitivity and cough motor response in patients with nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) infection. These study findings are significant to identify the pathophysiological mechanisms that resulted in NTM disease in elderly white women and the syndrome that was developing in elderly white female NTM patients.

Source: Tsai HW, Fennelly K, Wheeler-Hegland K, et al.. J Appl Physiol (1985). 2017 May 1;122(5):1262-1266. doi: 10.1152/japplphysiol.00939.2016. Epub 2017 Mar 2.