Asthma

Smoking Before Fatherhood May Raise Asthma Risk in Kids: Study

Men who smoke before becoming a parent may put their children at increased risk for asthma, a new study suggests.

Smoking Before Fatherhood May Raise Asthma Risk in Kids

Researchers analyzed the smoking habits of more than 13,000 men and women, and then looked at the incidence of asthma in their children. The results showed that asthma was much more common in children whose fathers were smokers before conception. A child’s risk of asthma increased if the father smoked before age 15, and the risk grew the longer the father smoked.

While the finding showed an association between a man’s smoking history and asthma risk in his children, it did not prove cause-and-effect.

There was no association between a mother being a smoker prior to conception and a child’s risk of asthma, according to the study that was to be presented Monday at the European Respiratory Society meeting in Munich, Germany.

“This study is important as it is the first study looking at how a father’s smoking habit pre-conception can affect the respiratory health of his children,” Dr. Cecile Svanes, of the University of Bergen in Norway, said in a European Lung Foundation news release.

“Given these results, we can presume that exposure to any type of air pollution, from occupational exposures to chemical exposures, could also have an effect. It is important for policymakers to focus on interventions targeting young men and warning them of the dangers of smoking and other exposures to their unborn children in the future,” Svanes added.

Animal studies have suggested that a father’s exposures before becoming a parent can harm his offspring, the researchers noted.

Research presented at meetings should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Source: health day

Animal fur bed helps reduce asthma risk in infants

A new study has observed that infants who sleep on animal fur in the first three months of life are less likely to suffer from asthma in later childhood.

Animal fur bed helps reducing asthma risk in infants

The study at the European Respiratory Society (ERS) International Congress in Munich suggested that microbial environment in animal skin and fur could have a protective effect against asthma and allergies.

The researchers collected information on exposure to animal skin during the first three months of life, along with information on the health of children until the age of 10 years and information on 2,441 children was used in the study, with 55percent of those included sleeping on animal skin in the first three months of life. The results showed that sleeping on animal skin was associated with a reduced risk of a number of factors connected to asthma. Dr Christina Tischer, from the Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen Research Centre, said that previous studies suggested that microbes found in rural settings could protect from asthma. Tischer added that an animal skin might also be a reservoir for various kinds of microbes, following similar mechanisms as has been observed in rural environments.

Source: Times of India

Childhood obesity may cause asthma

It is more probable that childhood obesity contributes to asthma rather than the other way round, says a study.

Childhood obesity may cause asthma

For years, doctors have known that there is a link between childhood obesity and asthma, but have found it difficult to determine which condition tends to come first, or whether one causes the other.

“The relationship between obesity and asthma in adults, which shows that being overweight and obese can precede the onset of asthma, is supported by a number of studies,” said lead author of the study Perdita Permaul from Massachusetts General Hospital in the US.

“There is not as much evidence for children, but the progression from obesity to asthma, rather than the other way around, seems probable,” Permaul added.

Citing a study that showed that rapid growth in body mass index (BMI) during the first two years of life increased the risk of asthma up to six years of age, the team shows that the onset and duration of obesity and the composition of the excess fat can affect lung function.

“Most kids who suffer from asthma also have allergies,” said Michael Foggs, president, American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI).

“These allergic responses in the lung can lead to symptoms of allergy,” Foggs added.

The study appeared in the journal Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

Source: times of india

E-cigarettes may have unknown health risks: Study

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Despite our growing knowledge that smoking tobacco is bad for us more than 40 million Americans are cigarette smokers. Smoking cigarettes is known to cause damage to every organ in your body, and smoking-related illnesses are responsible for one out of every five deaths in the U.S. But nearly 70 percent of smokers report they want to quit, and a little more than 42 percent say they’ve tried to quit during the past year

In 2009 there was a 10 percent decrease in cigarette sales in the U.S., and while that directly followed an increase in the federal cigarette tax, it’s not only price that’s changing the habits of American smokers. Electronic cigarettes (known also as e-cigarettes) have also contributed.

Global sales of smokeless tobacco products, including smokeless inhalers, has grown to nearly $3 billion — and continues to grow. In an attempt to quit the tobacco habit as many as one-fifth of smokers have tried e-cigarettes [source: Ross].

E-cigarettes were first developed in China and were introduced to the U.S. market in 2007. Many are similar enough in appearance to be mistaken for regular tobacco cigarettes. But one look inside and you’ll see the main difference: This is a tobacco-free product. E-cigs are actually vaporizers; instead of burning tobacco, the mechanism heats up a liquid.

The liquid turns into vapor, which is then inhaled, or “vaped.” While some argue that vapor offers health advantages over traditional cigarette smoke, regulatory agencies and some health experts aren’t so sure that’s true. Before you consider taking up the e-cigarette habit, read on to get the facts.

Source: how stuff works

Managing Your Child’s Asthma at School

asthma

If your child has been diagnosed with asthma, you know the difficulty of managing your child’s asthma symptoms at school. Many children with asthma have symptoms at school. That’s why it’s important to get the school involved in managing your child’s asthma, so a responsible adult at the school knows when and how to administer asthma inhalers or other asthma treatment. Even if your child has mild asthma, working with the classroom teacher and other school officials is vital for managing your child’s condition and treating mild symptoms early on before they worsen.

With the prevalence of asthma increasing rapidly among children in the U.S., most schools have many students with asthma. Many classroom teachers — and certainly the school nurses — are very familiar with helping children with asthma. Still, it is important to take steps to ensure that your child gets adequate attention at school and that all the key people are familiar with what is needed in managing your child’s asthma and preventing asthma symptoms at school.

How Can I Prevent Asthma Problems for My Child at School?

The most important thing you can do to prevent asthma problems for your child at school is to talk to your child and, depending on how old he is, explain to him as much about asthma as he can understand. Ideally, your child should be able to keep track of when it’s time to take his medicine, how to use the asthma inhaler properly, how to use a peak flow meter, what the number on the peak flow meter means, and what to do if that number is too low.

You should also make sure that the school officials know all about managing your child’s asthma. They must know how severe the asthma is, what the what the triggers are, what asthma medications to use and how to properly give them, how to use the peak flow meter, and what to do in case of an asthma attack.

The specific steps for managing your child’s asthma at school should be written up in your child’s asthma action plan. The asthma action plan should be distributed to every school official who may care for your child. It’s important to have a conference with the child’s teachers and other school officials and explain the asthma action plan, including your child’s triggers, the severity of the asthma, and common symptoms and effective treatment of your child’s asthma.
Read Also Premature Birth Linked to Asthma in Childhood

In addition, you should look around your child’s classroom and other areas where he or she goes at the school to see if there are any known allergy or asthma triggers. If you identify possible asthma triggers (dust mites and dust are common triggers in a classroom), you should work with the teacher to reduce your child’s exposure to these triggers.

Source: Managing Your Child’s Asthma at School

Cheaper blood test to diagnose asthma

Researchers have developed a faster, cheaper and more accurate tool for diagnosing even mild cases of asthma using just a single drop of blood.

The researchers used neutrophil cell function in a clinical study to show accurate asthma diagnosis.

To directly diagnose asthma, David Beebe, a UW-Madison professor of biomedical engineering and co-author on the paper, and his team focused on the cell function of neutrophils. Neutrophils are the most abundant white blood cell in the body and generally are the first cells to migrate toward inflammation.

“Neutrophils are sort of like a dog tracking something. They sense a chemical gradient, like an odor, in the body,” Beebe says.

In other words, the human body emits chemical signals in response to inflammation or wounds and the neutrophils detect those chemical signals and migrate to the site of the wound to aid in the healing process. Researchers can track the velocity at which the neutrophil cells migrate — the chemotaxis velocity — to differentiate nonasthmatic samples from the significantly reduced chemotaxis velocity of asthmatic patients.

UW-Madison students have developed the kit-on-a-lid-assay (KOALA) microfluidic technology, which allows them to detect neutrophils using just a single drop of blood.

The KOALA diagnostic procedure uses simple lids and bases (each being a small, cheap piece of plastic), diagnosticians place a KOALA lid containing a chemical mixture onto the base containing the blood sample. That chemical mixture triggers neutrophil migration — and researchers can automatically track and analyze the neutrophil chemotaxis velocity using custom software.

The team has published online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Source: Times of India

 

Tips for tackling asthma during pregnancy

Expecting a child is the most exciting and happy phase in a woman’s life, but suffering from an asthma attack is the worst nightmare a pregnant lady can face.

As per National Asthma Education Group for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), asthma is one of the most common diseases that can complicate a pregnancy.

It is advisable for pregnant women to identify the early asthma symptoms as the disease’s effects on pregnant women are appalling, Parents India magazine reported.

If asthma becomes uncontrolled, it can bring about a risk for the mother’s as well as for the baby’s health. This situation can even lead to further complications like oxygen deprivation for the baby, morning sickness, vaginal bleeding, high blood pressure and protein in the urine after 20 weeks of pregnancy (preeclampsia), restricted fetal growth, complicated labor, need for a C-section, premature birth, low birth weight and in extreme cases, the baby’s life might be in jeopardy.

Since the fetus gets its oxygen from the mother’s blood, this condition leads to decreased oxygen in the fetal blood.

Swimming is known to be a particularly good exercise for women suffering from asthma. Using an inhaled bronchodilator ten minutes before you exercise may help you better tolerate your recommended exercise during pregnancy.

It is also advisable for the pregnant women who have asthma to get their condition monitored on a regular basis. A check-up once in three weeks is recommended by expert doctors worldwide.

Source: DNA India

Premature Birth Linked to Asthma in Childhood

A new analysis of existing research suggests that premature babies face a higher risk of developing asthma and wheezing disorders when they’re older.

Researchers from Harvard Medical School, the Maastricht University Medical Center in the Netherlands and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland examined 30 studies that included about 1.5 million children.

They found that premature children (born before 37 weeks of gestation) were 46 percent more likely to develop asthma or wheezing problems than kids who weren’t born prematurely. Full-term birth is generally considered about 40 weeks’ gestation.

Very premature children (those born before 32 weeks’ gestation) faced an even higher estimated risk — almost three times that of children born at full term, said Jasper Been, from Maastricht University, and his colleagues.

About 11 percent of children are born prematurely, the study authors said in the report, which was published in the Jan. 28 online edition of the journal PLoS Medicine and these chldren suffer a lot when they go to school. Here are the tips to manage Your Child’s Asthma at School

“The current findings do not support prior suggestions that the association between preterm birth and wheezing disorders becomes less prominent with increasing age,” the researchers wrote in the report. “Instead, the strength of the association was similar across age groups [up to 18 years],” which suggests that the effects of preterm birth on the lungs tend to have life-long consequences.

Although the study found an association between premature birth and respiratory problems such as asthma later in life, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

Source: web md

Fibre rich diet may ward off asthma

A new study has revealed that eating a diet rich in fibre can protect against allergic asthma by triggering changes in the immune system.

Benjamin Marsland from the University Hospital of Lausanne in Switzerland and colleagues found that levels of dietary fibre, found in fruit and vegetables, can influence the balance of microbes in the gut in ways that make the airways more or less prone to the inflammation seen in allergic airway diseases, New Scientist reported.

The researchers, who looked at how the immune and inflammatory responses of mice varied with the fibre in their diet, found that when the mice were exposed to an extract of house dust mites, those fed with less fibre had double the number of a specific type of immune cell associated with asthmatic inflammation in their airways, than those on a standard diet.

It was found that mice given additional fibre supplements on top of a standard diet showed a reduction in these immune cells, but only if the supplement was easily fermentable in the gut.

The study was published in Journal Nature Medicine.

Source:  Zee news

What allergy, asthma sufferers need to keep in mind

35 million Americans suffer from allergies, which in the fall begin in late August and peak in September.

With summer coming to a close, and kids heading back to school and preparation for fall begins, we shouldn’t forget to consider fall allergies.

An estimated 35 million Americans suffer from allergies, which in the fall begin in late August and peak in September.

For those with fall allergies, three triggers typically occur – ragweed, indoor allergens and infections.

“During the summer, people experience the lowest incidence of allergies and asthma so they feel better and stop taking their allergy medications. But they should start taking them again in early September to prevent symptoms before they start,” David Rosenstreich, M.D., director of the allergy and immunology division at Montefiore Medical Center, said.

“If allergy sufferers make the mistake of waiting until after their symptoms are in full swing, it’s much harder to stop the allergic reaction than to prevent it from even beginning,” he said.

One of the biggest culprits for fall allergies is ragweed.

In the fall, ragweed releases pollen into the air and this continues until frost kills the plant closer to winter.

Most prevalent in the Eastern and Midwest states, ragweed causes an allergic reaction commonly called hay fever and results in symptoms that include itchy eyes, nose and throat, sneezing, stuffy or runny nose, tearing or dark circles under the eyes.

An allergy symptom is the result of the immune system overreacting.

Another trigger for allergies during the fall is due to people staying indoors more and they are therefore exposed to allergens like pet dander, dust and mold.

Several precautions to consider includes maintaining an allergen free environment at home, focus on your bedroom: keep your pets out, eliminate the rug because it collects dust and avoid feather pillows.

Make sure the fireplace is well-ventilated and be careful of any leakage and keep basement and bathroom dry to avoid mold growing in these damp areas of the house. Have your heating system cleaned to avoid dust mites when you first turn on the heat.

The third trigger is infections and the flu, which affect the body’s immune system and cause it to release antibodies and histamines to fight them off.

The flu vaccine is recommended to help reduce the risk of getting sick, but it’s even more important for people who suffer from asthma or other lung conditions.

Source: Zee News