Feature Channels: Asthma

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An app that allows parents and doctors to monitor a child’s asthma has a big impact on managing the disease. When families monitored symptoms with eAsthma Tracker and adjusted care accordingly, children had better asthma control and made fewer visits to the emergency department. Using the app also meant that children missed fewer days of school and parents took fewer days off work, improving quality of life.

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An enormous volcanic eruption on Iceland in 1783-84 did not cause an extreme summer heat wave in Europe. But, as Benjamin Franklin speculated, the eruption triggered an unusually cold winter, according to a Rutgers-led study. The study, in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, will help improve predictions of how the climate will respond to future high-latitude volcanic eruptions.

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On World Asthma Day, the American Thoracic Society joins the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) and other founding members of the Forum of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS) in recognizing this year’s theme: “STOP for asthma.” FIRS calls on global health care providers to STOP for asthma and evaluate symptoms, test response to therapy, observe and assess, and finally proceed to adjust treatment.

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Feeling as though there are too many things to think about as you plan your transition from high school senior to college freshman?

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Many kids with asthma don’t know how to properly use their inhaler. A new study finds that both kids and parents have misplaced confidence in their inhaler technique.

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A new study, published April 30, 2019 in Lancet Respiratory Medicine, is the first large investigation to examine the differences in genetic risk factors for childhood-onset and adult-onset asthma. This genome-wide association study found that childhood-onset asthma was associated with nearly three times as many genes as adult-onset asthma.

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Studies have linked psoriasis and higher weight, but the causal relationship between the two has been unclear. What triggers what?

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Scientists have uncovered fresh insights into how vitamin D affects the immune system and might influence susceptibility to diseases such as multiple sclerosis.

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In the first study to evaluate inhaler technique in children hospitalized for asthma – the group at highest risk for complications and death from asthma – researchers found that nearly half of participants demonstrated improper inhaler use, which means they routinely were not taking in the full dose of medication. Adolescents most commonly displayed critical errors in inhaler technique. They also often skipped using a spacer, which is a device that is recommended for use with an inhaler to help the right amount of asthma medication reach the lungs. Findings were published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine.

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May is Asthma and Allergy Awareness Month – the perfect time to bust some asthma myths that have been around for many years.

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As part of the Upstate Kids study, University at Albany professor Erin Bell and her team have found a link between cesarean delivery and the likelihood that the child will develop asthma and food allergies.

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About 4 million children worldwide develop asthma each year because of inhaling nitrogen dioxide air pollution, according to a study published today by researchers at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health (Milken Institute SPH). The study, based on data from 2010 to 2015, estimates that 64 percent of these new cases of asthma occur in urban areas. The study is the first to quantify the worldwide burden of new pediatric asthma cases linked to traffic-related nitrogen dioxide by using a method that takes into account high exposures to this pollutant that occur near busy roads.

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Paul Andrew Reyfman, MD, MS of Northwestern University has been awarded the ATS Foundation/Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Research Fellowship in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. The $100,000 award will help fund Dr. Reyfman’s research, “Single Cell Transcriptomic Analysis of Pulmonary Fibrosis.”

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A new study shows most American allergists now prescribe under-the-tongue allergy tablets for patients to treat certain allergies.

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A six-month study of children from Baltimore City by Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers has added to evidence that having more omega-3 fatty acids in the diet results in fewer asthma symptoms triggered by indoor air pollution. The same study suggests that higher amounts of dietary omega-6 fatty acids may have the opposite effect, and be associated with more severe asthma.

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Dietary intake of two fatty acids, omega-3 and omega-6, may have opposite effects on the severity of asthma in children and may also play opposite roles in modifying their response to indoor air pollution, according to new research published online in the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

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New research suggests a hormone released from fat tissue is critical in the development of obesity-related asthma and may be a target of future treatments for the disease. The findings will be presented Saturday, March 23 at ENDO 2019, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in New Orleans, La.

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Higher rates of lung disease in children born to moms who were undernourished during pregnancy could be explained by epigenetic changes in a number of lung-specific genes.

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Although there is no cure, researchers launched a two-year clinical study to determine whether adding low-cost prebiotic soluble fiber supplements to a patient’s diet can help improve asthma symptoms.

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A new study shows urban children with poorly controlled asthma, particularly those who are ethnic minorities, suffer academically. Kids who are kept home due to asthma symptoms often aren’t able to do as well in the classroom.

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A new study finds vitamin D may be protective among asthmatic obese children living in urban environments with high indoor air pollution. The study out of John Hopkins University School of Medicine, funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health, was published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice.

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Cleaning your house of allergens that have built up over the winter can help ease spring allergy symptoms.

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How certain bacteria may make people more prone to asthma is one topic of three research grants jointly funded by Southern Research and the UAB School of Medicine. These new research pilots are the latest effort to harness synergies between researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Southern Research, a Birmingham-based nonprofit research institute with nearly 400 scientists and engineers. The two other pilots seek an improved way to develop new vaccines and a new mouse model for a potentially dangerous, hereditary deficiency shared by 400 million people worldwide.

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UNC School of Medicine researcher Edwin Kim, MD, MS, says the results of a multi-year observational study are encouraging for those suffering from peanut allergies.

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UNC SOM researchers are available to speak to media covering the conferences or interested in the topics. To schedule an interview contact Carleigh Gabryel at 919-864-0580 or [email protected].

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Irvine, Calif., Feb. 13, 2019 – Researchers at the University of California, Irvine have developed a wearable, disposable respiration monitor that provides high-fidelity readings on a continuous basis. It’s designed to help children with asthma and cystic fibrosis and others with chronic pulmonary conditions. The inexpensively produced sensors were created by UCI biomedical engineers using the popular children’s toy Shrinky Dinks, thin sheets of plastic that are painted or drawn on and then shrunk with heat.

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Sending kids with allergies and asthma off to summer camp takes an extra dose of planning.

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In what they consider a surprise finding, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers have demonstrated a key role for male sex hormone “signaling” in inducing—rather than suppressing—allergic lung inflammation in a mouse model of asthma.

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Compared to Mexican American children, Puerto Rican children were more likely to have poor or decreasing use of inhaled medication needed to control their asthma, according to new research published online in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society.

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Experimenting with mice, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers report that a low-calorie diet prevented asthma symptoms regardless of the diet’s fat and sugar content. The researchers also say they found that obesity resulting from a high-calorie diet led to asthma symptoms in the animals by causing lung inflammation, and a drug that blocks inflammation eased those symptoms.

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The focus for asthma treatment is often stepping up treatment, but clinicians need to know how to step down therapy when symptoms improve.

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Fish oil does not appear to improve asthma control in adolescents and young adults with uncontrolled asthma who are overweight or obese, according to new research published online in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society.

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Older patients with a diagnosis of chronic sinusitis — a disease of the nasal cavity and paranasal sinuses that often persists over many years — have a unique inflammatory signature that may render them less responsive to steroid treatment, according to a new study published by Vanderbilt researchers.

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Valentine's Day tips for keeping loved ones with allergies and asthma sneeze and wheeze free

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As levels of ozone and fine particulate pollution (PM2.5) rise, more patients end up in the ER with breathing problems, according to the largest U.S. study of air pollution and respiratory emergency room visits of patients of all ages. The study was published online in the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

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Fever is known to help power up our immune cells, and scientists in Shanghai have new evidence explaining how. They found in mice that fever alters surface proteins on immune cells like lymphocytes to make them better able to travel via blood vessels to reach the site of infection. Their work appears on January 15 in the journal Immunity.

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While more than 32 million individuals in the U.S. have a documented penicillin allergy in their medical record, studies have shown that more 95 percent actually can be treated safely with this class of antibiotics, improving treatment outcomes and reducing the risk of infection with dangerous resistant pathogens such as Clostridium difficile (C. difficile). A review article in the January 15 issue of JAMA recommends best practices for evaluation of reported penicillin allergies and provides clinicians with guidance and tools to help determine appropriate procedures based on the severity of previously reported reactions.

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Organ transplant rejection is a major problem in transplantation medicine. Suppressing the immune system to prevent organ rejection, however, opens the door to life-threatening infections. Researchers at the University of Basel's Biozentrum have now discovered a molecular approach preventing rejection of the transplanted graft while simultaneously maintaining the ability to fight against infections.

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A study of factors that may be associated with urban adolescents going undiagnosed with asthma has found that Latino and African American urban adolescents, these groups were at lower risk to go undiagnosed compared with Whites.

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Adults think they have food allergies whey they don't

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Myths about gluten are hard to bust. Intolerance, allergy, sensitivity, hypersensitivity. What is what? Celiac disease is none of these things. It is an autoimmune disorder, where gluten triggers the immune system to attack the gut. It is common, lifelong, and can seriously harm health - but nobody knows for sure what causes it. Now a review in Frontiers in Pediatrics says a common food additive could both cause and trigger these autoimmune attacks, and calls for warnings on food labels pending further tests.

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Experts and research on important topics in the healthcare system

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One of the classic cold symptoms is a cough. Usually after a week or so, the cold runs its course and most of the symptoms go away. But for some people, the cough remains. So why do we cough and what can we do about it? Here are five things you should know about that persistent cough.

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Rush University Medical Center is working to improve population health by focusing the economic impact of how it hires, purchases and invests towards the local communities it serves

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Pinellas County residents and visitors who are susceptible to the respiratory impacts of Florida's red tide -- especially people with asthma and other chronic lung diseases -- now have a new tool that will help them know their risks before they visit area beaches during red tides.

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Together with colleagues from Sweden and Luxembourg, scientists from the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) of the University of Luxembourg have observed that, during a natural vaginal birth, specific bacteria from the mother's gut are passed on to the baby and stimulate the baby's immune responses. This transmission is impacted in children born by caesarean section.

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If you can reduce the overall stress that comes with the holidays, maybe you can also cut down your allergy and asthma symptoms

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Rush University Medical Center has opened a center for airway diseases, a comprehensive program to treat people with interrelated chronic conditions such as sinusitis, allergies, asthma and sleep apnea, which affect millions of people. It is the first program of its kind in Illinois.