(Don’t) take my breath away: Rare epithelial cells in our airways initiate reflexes to guard against harmful stimuli

Rare epithelial cells in our airways initiate reflexes to guard against harmful stimuli Everything that enters our mouth can flow to the lungs or the stomach. Most of the time, things go in the right direction: Air enters the lungs, and food and liquid are shunted to the gastrointestinal tract. However, within an instant, this process can fail. Each time we eat, drink, or sleep, every breath holds the risk of aspirating food, liquid, or stomach acid into our airway. At best, aspiration evokes temporary panic and mild discomfort as we forcefully clear our airways. At worst, it can lead to airway blockage, acidinduced lung damage, or aspiration pneumonia (1). These worst-case outcomes occur frequently in people with neurological or esophageal disorders or with critical illness and are a leading cause of aspiration pneumonia and mortality in older people (2).

• Publication year

  2024

• Venue

  Science

• Publication date

  2024-09-27

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1126/science.ads1317PMID 39325901
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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