June 3, 2009, 5:00 AM CT

Obesity Does Not Worsen Asthma

Being overweight or obese does not make asthma worse in patients with mild and moderate forms of the disease, as per a research studyby National Jewish Health researchers, eventhough it may reduce the response to medications.

"With both asthma and obesity on the rise in recent years, there has been much interest in the possible link between these two conditions," said main author E. Rand Sutherland, Associate Professor of Medicine at National Jewish Health, and main author of the paper appearing in the June 2009 issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

"By studying a well characterized group of patients with asthma, we were able to determine that increased weight is not linked to more severe asthma. Eventhough benefits can be obtained with weight loss in other diseases, these findings suggest that an improvement in asthma may not necessarily result from weight loss.

"The findings also suggest that patients and physicians should be aware that obese asthma patients may not respond well to corticosteroids, the most successful controller medicine for asthma, which can affect dosing decisions and choices of possible alternatives to steroids."

Prior studies have suggested that obesity predisposes people to developing asthma, to suffer more severe asthma symptoms, and to respond less to medications. However, the exact mechanism for these links has been unclear, and the studies have generally relied upon patients' reports of their diagnosis and symptoms rather than using more precise tools to characterize patients......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

May 27, 2009, 9:18 PM CT

Why Eczema Often Leads To Asthma ?

A number of young children who get a severe skin rash develop asthma months or years later. Doctors call the progression from eczema, or atopic dermatitis, to breathing problems the atopic march.

Now researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have uncovered what might be the key to atopic march. They've shown that a substance secreted by damaged skin circulates through the body and triggers asthmatic symptoms in allergen-exposed laboratory mice.

The findings, published May 19, 2009, in Public Library of Science Biology, suggest that early therapy of skin rash and inhibition of the trigger substance might block asthma development in young patients with eczema.

Fifty percent to 70 percent of children with severe atopic dermatitis go on to develop asthma, studies show. By comparison, the rate of asthma incidence among the general population is only about 9 percent in children and 7 percent in adults. Seventeen percent of U.S. children suffer from atopic dermatitis, eventhough not all cases are considered severe.

"Over the years, the clinical community has struggled to explain atopic march," says study author Raphael Kopan, Ph.D., professor of developmental biology and of dermatology. "So when we observed that the skin of mice with an eczema-like condition produced a substance previously implicated in asthma, we decided to investigate further. We observed that the mice also suffered from asthma-like responses to inhaled allergens, implicating the substance, called TSLP, as the link between eczema and asthma."........ Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 30, 2009, 9:50 PM CT

Management of asthma during pregnancy

Pregnant women with asthma, the most common condition affecting the lungs during pregnancy, should actively manage their asthma in order to optimize the health of mother and the baby, as per new management recommendations reported in the current issue of the New England Journal (NEJM)

"Though studies suggest asthma during pregnancy can increase health risks for mom and baby, our research shows that women who manage their asthma can have as healthy a pregnancy as women who don't have asthma," said Michael Schatz, MD, main author of the NEJM recommendations and chief of the Allergy Department at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, San Diego, Calif. "A number of studies suggest that asthma can increase the risk of pregnancy complications, including preeclampsia, low birth-weight babies or preterm birth, however, women with well-controlled asthma in pregnancy generally have good pregnancy outcomes. Women who have asthma and are considering pregnancy should speak with their doctors to develop a treatment plan".

The recommendations are based to a large degree on a 12-year Kaiser Permanente study of 1,900 pregnant women, and a Maternal Fetal Medicine Units network study of 2,620 women from 16 university hospital centers around the country. Both studies concluded that women with actively managed asthma are just as likely to have healthy pregnancies and babies as women who don't have asthma......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

April 30, 2009, 5:09 AM CT

Folic acid may help treat allergies, asthma

Folic acid, or vitamin B9, essential for red blood cell health and long known to reduce the risk of spinal birth defects, may also suppress allergic reactions and lessen the severity of allergy and asthma symptoms, as per new research from the Johns Hopkins Children's Center.

In what is thought to bethe first study in humans examining the link between blood levels of folate the naturally occurring form of folic acid and allergies, the Hopkins researchers say results add to mounting evidence that folate can help regulate inflammation. Recent studies, including research from Hopkins, have found a link between folate levels and inflammation-mediated diseases, including heart disease. A report on the Hopkins Children's findings appears online ahead of print in the Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology

Cautioning that it's far too soon to recommend folic acid supplements to prevent or treat people with asthma and allergies, the scientists emphasize that more research needs to be done to confirm their results, and to establish safe doses and risks.

Reviewing the medical records of more than 8,000 people ages 2 to 85 the researchers tracked the effect of folate levels on respiratory and allergic symptoms and on levels of IgE antibodies, immune system markers that rise in response to an allergen. People with higher blood levels of folate had fewer IgE antibodies, fewer reported allergies, less wheezing and lower likelihood of asthma, scientists report......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 27, 2009, 5:08 AM CT

Simple household bleach to treat kids' eczema

It's best known for whitening a load of laundry. But now simple household bleach has a surprising new role: an effective therapy for kids' chronic eczema.

Chronic, severe eczema can mar a childhood. The skin disorder starts with red, itchy, inflamed skin that often becomes crusty and raw from scratching. The eczema disturbs kids' sleep, alters their appearance and affects their concentration in school. The itching is so bad kids may break the skin from scratching and get chronic skin infections that are difficult to treat, particularly from methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

Scientists from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine have discovered powerful relief in the form of diluted beach baths. It's a cheap, simple and safe therapy that drastically improves the rash as well as reduces flare-ups of eczema, which affects 17 percent of school-age children.

The study found giving pediatric patients with moderate or severe eczema (atopic dermatitis) diluted bleach baths decreased signs of infection and improved the severity and extent of the eczema on their bodies. That translates into less scratching, fewer infections and a higher quality of life for these children.

The typical therapy of oral and topical antibiotics increases the risk of bacterial resistance, something doctors try to avoid, particularly in children. Bleach kills the bacteria but doesn't have the same risk of creating bacterial resistance......... Posted by: George      Read more         Source

April 23, 2009, 5:05 AM CT

Vitamin D levels and asthma severity

New research provides evidence for a link between vitamin D insufficiency and asthma severity.

Serum levels of vitamin D in more than 600 Costa Rican children were inversely associated with several indicators of allergy and asthma severity, including hospitalizations for asthma, use of inhaled steroids and total IgE levels, as per a research studythat will appear in the first issue for May of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine

While prior in vitro studies have suggested that vitamin D may affect how airway cells respond to therapy with inhaled steroids, this is the first in vivo study of vitamin D and disease severity in children with asthma.

Juan Celedn, M.D., Dr. P.H. and Augusto Litonjua, M.D., M.P.H. of Harvard Medical School and his colleagues recruited 616 children with asthma living in the Central Valley of Costa Rica, a country known to have a high prevalence of asthma. Each child was assessed for allergic markers, including both allergen-specific and general sensitivity tests, and assessed for lung function and circulating vitamin D levels. Children whose forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) exceeded 65 percent of the predicted value were also tested for airway reactivity.

They observed that children with lower vitamin D levels were significantly more likely to have been hospitalized for asthma in the prior year, tended to have airways with increased hyperreactivity and were likely to have used more inhaled corticosteroids, all signifying higher asthma severity. These children were also significantly more likely to have several markers of allergy, including dust-mite sensitivity......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

March 29, 2009, 10:34 PM CT

Role of enzyme and vitamin in asthma

The allergen breathed in by a person with asthma triggers a proteinase or enzyme called MMP7 that activates a cascade of events to prompt an allergic reaction, said a consortium of scientists led by Baylor College of Medicine (www.bcm.edu) in Houston in a report that appears online today in the journal Nature Immunology

In particular, MMP7 activates interleukin 25, a key mediator of the allergic response in the lung said Drs. Farrah Kheradmand (http://www.bcm.edu/medicine/pulmonary/?pmid=4832) and David B. Corry (http://www.bcm.edu/medicine/pulmonary/?pmid=4828), associate professors of medicine-pulmonary at BCM, and senior authors of the report.

In the same report, the scientists report that they have identified a form of vitamin A made in the lung that is critical for dampening the inflammatory effect. Mice that lack MMP7 were found to have higher production of retinal dehydrogenase, an enzyme that is responsible for synthesizing vitamin A in the lung. MMP7 deficient mice showed less lung inflammation when they are exposed to allergens than did mice who had enough MMP7. Suppressing the production of vitamin A restored the asthmatic symptoms in the MMP7 deficient mice.

"It is important to know which mediators in the airway appears to be setting off the initial cascade of events that result in the asthmatic reaction in the lung; it would be like getting to the top of the food chain," they said......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

March 5, 2009, 6:15 AM CT

Antibody treatment for sever asthma

McMaster University scientists have found patients with a very severe asthma benefit from injections of the antibody, mepolizumab.

The study by Dr. Param Nair and his colleagues based at The Firestone Institute for Respiratory Disease, St. Joseph's Healthcare, found patients who require a lot of medication, including prednisone, to control their disease benefit from the injections.

The research reported in the New England Journal (NEJM) (NEJM), investigated asthmatics with a persisting type of airway inflammation with inflammatory cells called eosinophils. It is estimated there are 60,000 to 120,000 Canadians with this condition.

"Mepolizumab works by blocking the production of eosinophils," said the study's senior author Dr. Paul O'Byrne. "By preventing their production, we were able to improve asthma, reduce the need for prednisone and really show that eosinophils are important in causing asthma symptoms in these patients." O'Byrne is the E. J. Moran Campbell Professor in Respiratory Medicine and chair of the Department of Medicine at McMaster University, and executive director of the Firestone Institute of Respiratory Health at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton.

Of three million asthmatics in Canada, about five to eight per cent are severe asthmatics. About half of these have severe asthma with persistent eosinophilia. Eventhough these asthmatics are fewer in number, they represent huge costs to the health care system because frequent flare-ups which can require admission to hospital......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

February 5, 2009, 6:08 AM CT

How much screen time is enough for children with asthma?

Urban children with asthma engage in an average of an hour more of screen time daily than the maximum amount American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends. This is the first study to examine screen time among children with asthma.

"We know that both asthma and excessive screen time can be linked to other difficulties, including behavior problems, difficulty with attention, poor school performance and obesity," said Kelly M. Conn, M.P.H., of General Pediatrics at Golisano Children's Hospital at Strong and main author of the study, which was published recently in Academic Pediatrics. (Academic Pediatrics changed its name from Ambulatory Pediatrics this year.) The study was conducted out of the University of Rochester Medical Center.

As a part of a larger study on how to more effectively treat asthma, Conn and her colleagues surveyed parents of urban children with asthma in Rochester, NY, to better understand their screen time viewing habits. Screen time includes TV watching and video tapes, playing video and computer games and using the Internet. The study observed that 74 percent of the 226 children whose parents were surveyed exceeded more than two hours of screen time per day. On average, these children with asthma watched 3.4 hours daily.

"Even though these findings are preliminary, a message for parents would be to remain aware of the amount of time your child is spending in front of screens and try to encourage your child to participate in a range of activities," Conn said. The types of programs children watch are also important; young children should watch shows meant for their age group, rather than watching PG-13 or R-rated movies, or playing Teen-rated games......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

February 4, 2009, 6:28 AM CT

Even natural perfumes may cause allergies

Hypersensitivity to perfumes is the most common contact allergy in adults. Research at the University of Gothenburg has demonstrated that even natural aromatic oils, which a number of deem harmless in comparison to synthetic perfumes, may cause allergic reactions.

Roughly one in five adults in northern Europe is believed to suffer from contact allergy to one or more chemicals. The most common is nickel allergy, but a number of people also suffer from contact allergy to perfumes even perfume substances that at first glance appear to be harmless can cause allergic reactions. New eczema-provoking allergens are formed by reaction with acid in the ambient air (known as autoxidation) or with skin enzymes.

Modern society usually regards anything that comes from nature as being healthier and less dangerous. Where it concerns natural aromas, known as essential oils, a number of manufacturers think that natural antioxidants in these oils offer protection against autoxidation thus making them safer and longer lasting than artificial perfumes. Research at the University of Gothenburg shows this is not the case.

Lina Hagvall, a researcher at the University of Gothenburg's Department of Chemistry, has examined natural lavender oil in her thesis. Her results show that essential oils do not prevent the formation of allergenic substances through reactions with acid; something which had not previously been possible to confirm. Hagvall's thesis also examines geraniol, a common constituent of perfumes such as rose oil. The study shows geraniol by itself to be only slightly allergenic. However through autoxidation and reaction with skin enzymes, the substance is activated and becomes the closely related allergen geranial. This is the first time these activation pathways have been demonstrated for the substance......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

January 30, 2009, 6:09 AM CT

New class of allergy drugs

If you've ever wondered why some allergic reactions progress quickly and may even become fatal, a new research report reported in the February 2009 issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology (http://www.jleukbio.org) provides an important part of the answer. In the report, researchers from Queen's University of Belfast, University of Oxford and Trinity College Dublin show for the first time that eotaxin, a chemical that helps immune cells locate the site of infection, blocks basic "fighter" cells from transforming into "seeker" dendritic cells, resulting in a heightened allergic response.

"Our study reveals a new role for the chemokine eotaxin in controlling immune cell types at the site of allergic reaction," said Nigel Stevenson, a researcher involved in the study. "These findings are crucial for our understanding of allergic responses and appears to be instrumental for the design of new allergy drugs".

Stevenson and his colleagues made this discovery by using immune cells grown in the lab and from healthy volunteers. Then the scientists mimicked what occurs during an allergic reaction by treating the cells with eotaxin, which was previously believed to only attract immune cells during an allergic reaction. Through a series of laboratory procedures, they tracked changes in immune cell type and observed that eotaxin inhibits monocytes becoming dendritic cells (that find foreign invaders so other immune cells can neutralize them), resulting in more "fighter" cells being present during an allergic response. This discovery shows how and why eotaxin plays an important role in the severity of allergic reactions and appears to be a target for an entirely new class of allergy medications......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

January 27, 2009, 6:18 AM CT

Fast-food diet cancels out benefits of breastfeeding

A number of studies have shown that breastfeeding appears to reduce the chance of children developing asthma. But a newly published study led by a University of Alberta professor has observed that eating fast food more than once or twice a week negated the beneficial effects that breastfeeding has in protecting children from the respiratory disease.

The article appears online in the international journal Clinical and Experimental Allergy based in London, England. Many different findings led the scientists to their conclusion showing links between fast food and asthma, breastfeeding and asthma, and all three together.

"Like other studies, we observed that fast-food consumption was linked to asthma," said the senior author, Dr. Anita Kozyrskyj (pronounced koh-ZUHR-skee), an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics in the U of A's Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry.

The research confirmed the findings of a number of other studies about the benefits of breastfeeding in relation to asthma. Kozyrskyj et al. observed that breastfeeding for too short a time was associated with a higher risk of asthma, or on the other hand that children exclusively breastfed 12 weeks or longer as infants had a lower risk.

"But this beneficial effect was only seen in children who did not consume fast food, or only occasionally had fast food," she added......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

January 26, 2009, 11:35 PM CT

Controversy of using stimulants to treat asthma

HOUSTON Just when the Food and Drug Administration is reconsidering the use of stimulants to treat asthma, a new research study offers further evidence to support a University of Houston professor's theory that an opposite approach to asthma treatment may be in order.

Richard A. Bond, professor of pharmacology at the University of Houston College of Pharmacy (UHCOP), has been investigating whether beta-2 adrenoreceptor antagonist drugs (or beta blockers) ultimately might be a safer, more effective strategy for long-term asthma management than the currently used beta-2 adrenoreceptor agonists (or stimulants).

The beta-2 adrenoreceptor is a receptor found in many cells, including the smooth muscle lining the airways, and has long been a target for asthma drugs. However, a recent study shows the absence of asthma-like symptoms in a mouse model that lacks the key gene that produces the receptor. This lends further evidence to Bond's theory that questions whether the pharmaceutical industry should be working to block or inhibit the receptor instead of the current approach of chronically stimulating it to reduce asthma symptoms.

The study, "Beta2-Adrenoreceptor Signaling is Required for the Development of an Asthma Phenotype in a Murine Model," is in the current online issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), one of the world's most-cited multidisciplinary scientific serials. A follow-up commentary by an independent scientist in the field also would be published in the print issue of PNAS in February......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

December 30, 2008, 7:13 AM CT

Anti-fungal drug against asthma

Some patients with severe asthma who also have allergic sensitivity to certain fungi enjoy great improvements in their quality of life and on other measures after taking an antifungal drug, as per new research from The University of Manchester in England.

The findings were published in the first issue for January of the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine

"We knew that a number of people with severe asthma are sensitized to several airborne fungi which can worsen asthma without overt clinical signs. The question was: does antifungal treatment provide any clinical benefit," said David Denning, F.R.C.P., F.R.C.Path., professor of medicine and medical mycology at The University of Manchester and lead investigator of the study.

In 2006, the most recent year for which official statistics are available, there were more than 16 million adults with self-reported asthma in the U.S.; about 20 percent of them have severe asthma.

A small number of severe asthmaticsabout one percent are known to have a syndrome called allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis, an extreme allergy to Aspergillus fumigatus fungus that is linked to the long-term colonization of their respiratory tracts with the fungus. But a number of more 20 to 50 percent are sensitized to a variety of fungi without showing overt clinical signs or demonstrable colonization. It is these patients with severe asthma with fungal sensitization, or "SAFS", as the scientists named the syndrome, who are most likely to enjoy marked improvement with the antifungal treatment......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

November 21, 2008, 5:43 AM CT

Fall babies: Born to wheeze?

It is said that timing is everything, and that certainly appears to be true for autumn infants. Children who are born four months before the height of cold and flu season have a greater risk of developing childhood asthma than children born at any other time of year, as per new research.

The study analyzed the birth and medical records of more than 95,000 children and their mothers in Tennessee to determine whether date of birth in relationship to the peak in winter respiratory viruses posed a higher risk for developing early childhood asthma. They observed that while having clinically significant bronchiolitis at any age during infancy was linked to an increased risk of childhood asthma, for autumn babies, that risk was the greatest.

"Infant age at the winter virus peak following birth independently predicts asthma development, with the highest risk being for infants born approximately four months previous to the peak, which is represented by birth in the fall months in the Northern hemisphere. Birth during this time conferred a nearly 30 percent increase in odds of developing asthma," said Tina V. Hartert, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor of medicine and director of the center for Asthma Research at Vanderbilt University, and principal investigator of the study......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

November 17, 2008, 10:23 PM CT

Asthma may be over-diagnosed by up to 30 percent

A new research study suggests that asthma may be over-diagnosed by up to 30 per cent in Canadian adults. The study, led by Ottawa researcher Dr. Shawn Aaron, examined 496 people from eight Canadian cities who reported receiving a diagnosis of asthma from a physician. When the individuals were retested for asthma using the accepted clinical guidelines, it was observed that 30 per cent had no evidence of asthma. Two thirds of these individuals were able to safely stop taking asthma medications. The results are reported in the November 18, 2008 edition of the Canadian Medical Association Journal

"Our study suggests that there may be a substantial over-diagnosis of asthma in Canadian adults," said lead author Dr. Shawn Aaron, a Senior Scientist at the Ottawa Health Research Institute and Head of Respiratory Medicine at The Ottawa Hospital and the University of Ottawa. "This is a serious issue because asthma medications are expensive and they can have side effects. Also, an inappropriate diagnosis of asthma may obscure the true cause of a patient's symptoms".

The original goal of the study was to determine if obese people were more likely to be misdiagnosed with asthma, but the results showed that misdiagnosis was just as common in people of normal weight. The prevalence of asthma in Canada and America is five per cent overall, and 10 per cent for obese people. The overall prevalence has nearly doubled in the last 20 years......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

November 13, 2008, 10:36 PM CT

Antibodies to cockroach and mouse proteins

A study released by scientists at the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health (CCCEH) at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health shows that developing antibodies to cockroach and mouse proteins is linked to a greater risk for wheeze, hay fever, and eczema in preschool urban children as young as three years of age. The study, reported in the November 2008 issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, is the first to focus on the links between antibody responses to cockroach and mouse proteins and respiratory and allergic symptoms in such a young age group.

"These findings increase our understanding of the relationship between immune responses to indoor allergens and the development of asthma and allergies in very young children," said lead author of the study, Kathleen Donohue, MD, fellow in Allergy and Immunology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. The study found evidence that the likelihood of developing wheeze, hay fever, and eczema in preschool urban children was significantly increased among the children who were exposed to antibodies of both cockroach and mouse allergens.

This study is part of a broader multi-year research project launched in 1998 by CCCEH that examines the health effects of exposure of pregnant women and babies to indoor and outdoor air pollutants, pesticides, and allergens. The Center's previous research findings have shown that exposure to multiple environmental pollutants is linked to an increase in risk for asthma symptoms among children. These latest findings contribute to a further understanding of how the environment impacts child health......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

November 11, 2008, 9:00 PM CT

The miseries of allergies just may help prevent some cancers

There may be a silver -- and healthy -- lining to the miserable cloud of allergy symptoms: Sneezing, coughing, tearing and itching just may help prevent cancer -- especially colon, skin, bladder, mouth, throat, uterus and cervix, lung and gastrointestinal tract cancer, as per a new Cornell study.

These cancers, interestingly, involve organs that "interface directly with the external environment," said Paul Sherman, Cornell professor of neurobiology and behavior, who led the study. He and his colleagues analyzed 646 studies on allergies and cancers published over the past 50 years, putting together "the most comprehensive database yet available" on allergies and cancers.

The study revealed "a strong relationship" between allergies and cancer in environmentally exposed tissues, Sherman said. This relationship seldom exists, he noted, between allergies and cancers of tissues that are not directly exposed to the environment, such as cancers of the breast and prostate, as well as myelocytic leukemia and myeloma.

Moreover, the study observed that allergies associated with tissues that are exposed to environmental factors -- eczema, hives, hay fever, and animal and food allergies -- were most strongly linked to lower rates of cancers in exposed tissues.

The study, co-authored with Erica Holland '05 (now a medical student at the University of Massachusetts) and Janet Shellman Sherman, a Cornell research scientist and lecturer in neurobiology and behavior, is reported in the recent issue of The Quarterly Review of Biology (83:4)......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

October 31, 2008, 5:26 AM CT

Drinking milk to ease milk allergy?

Giving children with milk allergies increasingly higher doses of milk over time may ease, and even help them completely overcome, their allergic reactions, as per the results of a study led by the Johns Hopkins Children's Center and conducted jointly with Duke University.

Despite the small number of patients in the trial 19 the findings are illuminating and encouraging, researchers say, because this is the first-ever double-blinded and placebo-controlled study of milk immunotherapy. In the study, the scientists compared a group of children receiving milk powder to a group of children receiving placebo identical in appearance and taste to real milk powder. Neither the patients nor the researchers knew which child received which powder, a rigorous research setup that minimizes the chance for error and bias.

The findings of the study are reported online ahead of print, Oct. 28, in the Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology

"Our findings suggest that oral immunotherapy gradually retrains the immune system to completely disregard or to better tolerate the allergens in milk that previously caused allergic reactions," says Robert Wood, M.D., senior investigator on the study and director of Allergy & Immunology at Hopkins Children's. "Albeit preliminary and requiring further study, these results suggest that oral immunotherapy may be the closest thing yet to a 'true' therapy for food allergy"......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

October 29, 2008, 8:50 PM CT

The upside to allergies: cancer prevention

A new article in the recent issue of The Quarterly Review of Biology provides good evidence that allergies are much more than just an annoying immune malfunction. They may protect against certain types of cancer.

The article, by scientists Paul Sherman, Erica Holland and Janet Shellman Sherman from Cornell University, suggests that allergy symptoms may protect against cancer by expelling foreign particles, some of which may be carcinogenic or carry absorbed carcinogens, from the organs most likely to come in with contact them. In addition, allergies may serve as early warning devices that let people know when there are substances in the air that should be avoided.

Medical scientists have long suspected an association between allergies and cancer, but extensive study on the subject has yielded mixed, and often contradictory, results. A number of studies have observed inverse associations between the two, meaning cancer patients tended to have fewer allergies in their medical history. Other studies have observed positive associations, and still others found no association at all.

In an attempt to explain these contradictions, the Cornell team reexamined nearly 650 prior studies from the past five decades. They observed that inverse allergy-cancer associations are far more common with cancers of organ systems that come in direct contact with matter from the external environmentthe mouth and throat, colon and rectum, skin, cervix, pancreas and glial brain cells. Likewise, only allergies linked to tissues that are directly exposed to environmental assaultseczema, hives, hay fever and animal and food allergieshad inverse relationships to cancers......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

October 7, 2008, 10:38 PM CT

Wheezing and asthma in young children

The diagnosis of asthma in a young child may well be more challenging to pediatricians than previously appreciated, as per a review of research and clinical experience literature by Howard Eigen, M.D., of the Indiana University School of Medicine and Riley Hospital for Children appearing in the October 2008 issue of Clinical Pediatrics

"Wheezing can be serious," said Dr. Eigen, the Billie Lou Wood Professor of Pediatrics at the IU School of Medicine and director of pediatric pulmonology and critical care at Riley Hospital. "A comprehensive review of clinical practice and peer evaluated studies show that the difficulty of accurate diagnosis is often underestimated by pediatricians who may link it to a passing cold or other non-serious condition rather than relating it to asthma, a chronic and potentially serious disease".

Dr. Eigen noted in his study that in early childhood asthma is often under recognized and under diagnosed because the symptoms can vary widely and are similar to other common childhood illnesses, including a non-specific cough, flu and bronchitis. Establishing a diagnosis of asthma in young wheezing children also can be challenging for the doctor because the type, severity and frequency of asthma symptoms vary widely among children and, sometimes even with an individual child......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

September 22, 2008, 10:38 PM CT

Pollution, everyday allergens, may be sources of laryngitis

Everyday exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, allergens, and air pollution may be the root of chronic cases of laryngitis, says new research presented at the 2008 American Academy of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery Foundation (AAO-HNSF) Annual Meeting & OTO EXPO in Chicago, IL.

Laryngitis symptoms include hoarseness of the voice, cough, and chronic clearing of the throat. Scientists and physicians generally attribute laryngitis to a viral infection and overuse of the voice. Other factors, including consistent exposure to second-hand smoke, have also been cited as a trigger.

Scientists have now found through animal models that exposure to different environmental pollutants, including dust mites and everyday air pollution, can cause what they term as "environmental laryngitis".

The findings are significant, given recent reports on diminishing air quality and increased unhealthy levels of ozone and particle pollution, particularly in countries like China, which could lead to more cases of laryngitis and chronic laryngitis......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

July 10, 2008, 8:33 PM CT

Link shown between thunderstorms and asthma attacks

In the first in-depth study of its kind ever done in the Southeastern United States, scientists at the University of Georgia and Emory University have discovered a link between thunderstorms and asthma attacks in the metro Atlanta area that could have a "significant public health impact".

While a relationship between thunderstorms and increased hospital visits for asthma attacks has been known and studied worldwide for years, this is the first time a team of climatologists and epidemiologists has ever conducted a detailed study of the phenomenon in the American South.

The team, studying a database consisting of more than 10 million emergency room visits in some 41 hospitals in a 20-county area in and around Atlanta for the period between 1993 and 2004, found a three percent higher occurence rate of visits for asthma attacks on days following thunderstorms.

"While a three percent increase in risk may seem modest, asthma is quite prevalent in Atlanta, and a modest relative increase could have a significant public health impact for a region with more than five million people," said Andrew Grundstein, a climatologist in the department of geography at UGA and lead author on the research. Grundstein went on to say that "three percent is likely conservative because of limitations in this study"......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

June 18, 2008, 9:08 PM CT

Caesarean sections associated with risk of asthma

Babies born by Caesarean section have a 50 % increased risk of developing asthma in comparison to babies born naturally. Emergency Caesarean sections increase the risk even further. This is shown in a new study based on data from 1.7 million births registered at the Medical Birth Registry at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.

The goal of the study was to investigate the possible link between being born by Caesarean section and later development of asthma.

Summarised results from the study:.

• In comparison to children born in the natural way (i.e. spontaneously and vaginally), children born by Caesarean section had an approximately 50 % increased risk of developing asthma.
• Children born vaginally, but with assistance from vacuum or forceps, had a 20 % increased risk of asthma.
• For children born between 1988 and 1998, planned Caesarean section was linked to an approximately 40 % increased risk of asthma while emergency Caesarean section was linked to a 60 % increased risk.

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Why do Caesarean sections give an increased risk of asthma?

- We found a moderately strong association between birth by Caesarean section and asthma in childhood, says doctor and research fellow Mette Christophersen Tollånes, who works for both the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and the Department of Public Health and Primary Health Care at the University of Bergen, Norway......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source