asthma
A recent nationally representative survey of older adults finds that 18 percent of those with chronic conditions such as heart disease and depression skip some of their prescription medicines because of out-of-pocket cost pressures, and 14 percent do so at least every month. Based on the study's findings, the authors estimate that every month, this cost-related medication skimping leads more than a million Americans with diabetes to use less medication for that illness than was prescribed to them, and causes more than 1.6 million people with asthma to miss some of their doses of medication.
For the second time in two years, scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have discovered a new type of regulatory T cell that reduces asthma and airway inflammation in mice, bolstering the theory that a deficiency of such cells is a prime cause of the breathing disorder as well as allergies. The team's research not only provides a detailed profile of these newfound cells but also sheds light on how such cells are related to other T cells and suggests that there exists a spectrum of regulatory T cells, known as Tregs, to be identified and studied.
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will lead a $10 million, five-year multi-institutional National Institutes of Health study to devise 3-D imaging and computational models of unsurpassed detail of respiratory systems in humans and other mammals, PNNL announced today. The grant will enable the Department of Energy lab and its partners to devise imaging and simulation techniques that promise a better understanding of the fate of airborne contaminants in the respiratory system, to help improve treatments for asthma and other respiratory ailments. The research will culminate in a ''pulmonary physiome,'' a web-based model for researchers and clinicians.
Parents of children with asthma are making many efforts to clear their homes of substances that could trigger their child's symptoms, but the steps they take aren't always the ones that could do the most good, a new University of Michigan study finds. And many don't take other steps that are known to help. In fact, only half of the 1,788 asthma-proofing steps taken by parents of 896 asthmatic children in the study were likely to work. The other half were unproven, unlikely to be helpful against the child's individual triggers, or, in a few cases, potentially harmful.
New research shows that adults with asthma may have an increased risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). According to a 20-year study, patients with asthma were 12 times more likely than nonasthmatics to develop COPD later in life.
Children whose homes contain high levels of endotoxin, a bacterial compound that collects in house dust, may be less likely to develop eczema during their first year of life, according to a new syudy. The study corroborates other recent work that supports the ''hygiene hypothesis'' -- speculation that early exposure to infectious or inflammatory agents causes changes in babies' immune systems that reduce their risk of developing allergy-related conditions later in life.
Physicians who prescribe the regular use of beta-agonist drugs for asthma could be endangering their patients, two new studies by researchers at Cornell and Stanford universities find. One study compiles previously published clinical trials to conclude that patients could both develop a tolerance for beta-agonists and be at increased risk for asthma attacks, compared with those who do not use the drug at all. The second study shows that beta-agonist use increases cardiac risks, such as heart attacks, by more than two-fold, compared with the use of a placebo.
Scientists at the National Institute of Environmental Health Science (NIEHS), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), have found that detectable levels of mouse allergen exist in the majority of U.S. homes. NIEHS researchers analyzed dust samples, asked questions, and examined homes in the first National Survey of Lead and Allergens in Housing, a survey of 831 homes. Allergen levels were studied and related to demographic factors and household characteristics.
Parents of Puerto Rican children are more likely than parents in other ethnic groups to report asthma among their children, and researchers wonder if the relationship between asthma symptoms and psychological problems may explain why. The connections between asthma and psychological symptoms are complex, and it is difficult to disentangle what's really causing the various symptoms suffered by Puerto Rican children in this study, said Alexander Ortega, the study's lead author and associate professor of public health at Ohio State University.
Allergies making your life miserable? Tired of popping antihistamines like candy? Can't go anywhere without your inhaler? The real problem may not be your stuffed-up head. It could be the microbes in your gut.
At the American Society for Microbiology meeting held here this week, scientists from the University of Michigan Medical School will present results of experiments with laboratory mice indicating that antibiotic-induced changes in microbes in the gastrointestinal tract can affect how the immune system responds to common allergens in the lungs.
Pulmonologists have linked a gene to the lung irritation commonly suffered following chronic exposure to ozone, a major component of urban air pollution. Should the new finding in mice be corroborated in human studies, drugs that block the function of the gene might serve as useful treatments for patients with asthma, the researchers said.
When the amount patients pay for prescription drugs doubles, patients cut their use of common drugs for chronic diseases such as diabetes, asthma and gastric acid ailments by as much as 23 percent, according to a study issued today by RAND Corporation researchers.
Despite spending more for health care, Americans do not have the best medical care in the world, according to researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and other institutions. The study is the first to use a universal set of standards to compare the quality of health care in the five countries surveyed. The researchers found that no country scored the best or worst overall and that each country was the best and worst in at least one area. The study is published in the May/June 2004 issue of the journal Health Affairs.
A 'stepdown' approach to reduce doses of inhaled steroids in patients with chronic asthma can cut the risk of side effects without compromising asthma control, say researchers in this week's BMJ.
Mayo Clinic yesterday received broad patent coverage for a new treatment of chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS), commonly called "sinus infection," a disease that annually affects 32 million adults in the United States and currently has no Food and Drug Administration-approved treatment. Studies at Mayo Clinic have found the cause of CRS -- a reaction to certain fungi -- and demonstrated that the delivery of antifungal drugs directly into the nose and sinuses is safe and significantly reduces patients? symptoms. Improvements in asthma symptoms were noted in the same patient group. Past medical treatments for chronic sinus infections have been unsuccessful or produced severe side effects.
