When it comes to feeding babies, the old adage “breast is best” certainly holds true, with breastfed babies having less diarrhea and fewer ear infections and incidents of wheezing in early life. However, the positive effects of infant feeding on lung function may not hold true for children of asthmatic mothers.
When it comes to asthma monitoring, the eye is the key; according to Associate Professor Helen Reddel, who has spent years researching and refining a new peak expiratory flow chart.
Farm children appear to have a lower risk of asthma than their urban counterparts or even those living in a nonagricultural rural environment, according to a University of Alberta study.
Household cleaning and home spray cleaners increase the risk of developing asthma by more than fifty percent, revealed by European researchers, first to investigate the effects of cleaning products on occasional users rather than occupational users, in a new study in Europe.
Using household cleaning sprays and air fresheners as little as once a week can raise the risk of developing asthma in adults, say researchers in Europe. Such products have been associated with increased asthma rates in cleaning professionals, but a similar effect in nonprofessional users has never before been shown.
A lack of family support and problems in one’s neighborhood are associated with greater asthma symptoms in children and adolescents, according to researchers in Vancouver, Canada.
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have found that more than 50 percent of the current asthma cases in the country can be attributed to allergies, with approximately 30 percent of those cases attributed to cat allergy.
Patients with asthma who are black appear more likely to visit the emergency department or be hospitalized for the condition than those who are white, even in a managed care setting that provides uniform access to care, according to a report in the Sept. 24 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration proposed a change to its regulation on the use of chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs in metered dose inhalers (MDIs) for epinephrine. The rule would remove the “essential-use” designation that allows the use of CFCs in these medical devices.
Giving children a diet rich in fish and “fruity vegetables” can reduce asthma and allergies, according to a seven-year study of 460 Spanish children, published in the September issue of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology.