Asthma Research

A new type of immune cell that can be out of control in certain chronic inflammatory diseases, worsening the symptoms of conditions like psoriasis and asthma, is described for the first time this week in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The authors of the study, from Imperial College London, the...

A new study on pediatric H1N1 influenza admissions has found that asthma is a significant risk factor for severe disease in children with pandemic H1N1 compared with the seasonal flu. The study, led by researchers from The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto, Ontario, is published online November 18 in CMAJ ...

University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston researchers have found that a single enzyme is apparently critical to most allergen-provoked asthma attacks — and that activity of the enzyme, known as aldose reductase, can be significantly reduced by compounds that have already undergone clinical trials as treatments for complications of diabetes. The discovery, made in experiments conducted with mice and in human cell cultures, opens...

For men with type 2 diabetes, a cell type linked to allergic inflammation is closely linked to a key indicator of diabetic kidney disease (nephropathy), suggests a study in the November Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN). "Allergy is a common disease that is increasing worldwide, so our findings may have important implications for diabetic nephropathy," comments...

While the majority of people hospitalized with the H1N1 swine flu have chronic medical conditions, many were healthy before coming down with the disease, a U.S. health official said Tuesday. More than half of hospitalized adults had conditions such as asthma, chronic lung diseases, heart disease or immune system disorders, Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said during...

Led by Dr Carsten Flohr, a Clinical Scientist from The University of Nottingham, and Dr Luc Nguyen Tuyen from the Khanh Hoa Provincial Health Service in central Vietnam, the study is the largest double-blind placebo controlled clinical trial to date looking at the potential links between hookworm and other gut worm infections and allergic conditions such as asthma and eczema. Thanks to improved hygiene practices parasitic worms have been mostly eradicated among human populations living in developed countries. However, experts believe that over millions of years of co-evolution worms have found methods...

Scientists have found that chemicals called endotoxins can inflame airways and trigger asthma. Endotoxins are shed by bacteria in household dust. Experts say better home hygiene, washing bed linens in hot water at least once a week, and using allergen-prevention pillow cases and mattress covers can reduce the risk of asthma attacks. Researchers say asthma and allergy triggers may be commonly found at home. That means there are things you can do to reduce the cause of your family's symptoms.

People who have a reduced lung capacity may have a greater risk of heart attack and stroke because they show evidence of inflammation, reveals a study published online ahead of print in Thorax. This association is not related to smoking, respiratory diseases or obesity. The New Zealand researchers took measurements of lung capacity and inflammation ...

Patients who experience fatigue during radiotherapy for breast or prostate cancer may be reacting to activation of the pro-inflammatory cytokine network, a known inflammatory pathway, according to a report in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. Julie Bower, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Psychology and Psychiatry at ...

Mold toxins in buildings damaged by moisture are considerably more prevalent than was previously thought, according to new international research. Erica Bloom from the Division of Medical Microbiology at Lund University in Sweden has contributed to research in this field by analyzing dust and materials samples from buildings damaged by mould. Virtually all of the ...

For the past century, changes in the Western diet have altered the consumption of omega-6 fatty acids (w6, found in meat and vegetable oils)...