Archive for October, 2008

A new article provides strong evidence that allergies are much more than just an annoying immune malfunction. They may protect against certain types of cancer.

The article, by researchers Paul Sherman, Erica Holland and Janet Shellman Sherman from Cornell University, suggests that allergy symptoms may protect against cancer by expelling foreign particles, some of which may be carcinogenic or carry absorbed carcinogens, from the organs most likely to come in with contact them.

In addition, allergies may serve as early warning devices that let people know when there are substances in the air that should be avoided.

Medical researchers have long suspected an association between allergies and cancer, but extensive study on the subject has yielded mixed, and often contradictory, results.

Many studies have found inverse associations between the two, meaning cancer patients tended to have fewer allergies in their medical history. Other studies have found positive associations, and still others found no association at all.

In an attempt to explain these contradictions, the Cornell team reexamined nearly 650 previous studies from the past five decades.

You could blame weeds, trees, and grasses if you start itching, sneezing, coughing, and wheezing this fall.

But the usual suspects aren’t the only triggers. A host of household items — candles, chemicals, stuffed animals, and spices — may be the real culprits.

“Many homes are filled with irritants, and if there’s a high enough count of an irritant, you’ll react,” says Christopher Randolph, M.D., an allergy expert and professor of pediatric immunology at Yale University.

Here, a rundown of 11 sneaky suspects — and how to stop them from bothering you.

Candles

You can’t be allergic to essential oils — which make candles smell like autumn leaves or dune grass — but their odors can inflame your nasal cavities, according to James Wedner, M.D., chief of allergy and immunology at the Washington University School of Medicine.

“People with nasal allergies have a natural increased sensitivity, so they’re likely to get a runny nose or watery eyes around candles,” he says. “To the person with the sensitive nose, it’s no different than cigarette smoke.”

Read more at CNN

A frightening and seriously debilitating affliction for the sufferer, asthma can be life-threatening and affects more than eight million adults in the United States alone.

The usual trigger for an asthma attack combines an allergic immune system, an inherited trait, with exposure to environmental allergic triggers like pollen and animal dander.

Air pollution, cold air and also cigarette smoke are other environmental triggers which activate an asthma attack. In addition, respiratory infections, colds and even crying, anger, exercise and stress are other major activators of asthma.

Ultimately, living a life with asthma can be a most miserable experience. However, there are many ways to improve the quality of your life with asthma.

Researchers suggest that certain nutrients play a vital role in reducing the intensity of an asthma attack by reducing airway sensitivity and dampening inflammation.

Essential vitamin supplements for asthma

• Vitamin B3: In some cases, vitamin B3 has shown effective results in reducing the frequency of asthma attacks. The antihistamine effect of this specific vitamin significantly helps you to reduce the effects of potential allergens. In a study, out of 19 patients who were given vitamin B3 treatment, 16 showed a definite reduction in asthma attacks.

Food allergies in American children seem to be on the rise, now affecting about 3 million kids, according to the first federal study of the problem.

But experts said that might be because parents are more aware and quicker to have their kids checked out by a doctor.

About 1 in 26 children had food allergies last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. That’s up from 1 in 29 kids in 1997.

The 18 percent increase is significant enough to be considered more than a statistical blip, said Amy Branum of the CDC, the study’s lead author.

Nobody knows for sure what’s driving the increase. A doubling in peanut allergies — noted in earlier studies — is one factor, some experts said.

Also, children seems to be taking longer to outgrow milk and egg allergies than they did in decades past.

But also figuring into the equation are parents and doctors who are more likely to consider food as the trigger for symptoms like vomiting, skin rashes and breathing problems.

According to a new report, adults and children who are referred for patch testing of allergens appear equally likely to have allergic contact dermatitis, although they tend to react to different allergens.

Skin reactions to allergens are common among children, according to the reasearch.

They can occur both on areas of the skin that come in direct contact with an allergen (contact dermatitis) and on areas that aren’t directly affected (atopic dermatitis).

Children suspected of contact dermatitis are often referred for patch testing, in which skin is exposed to various allergens affixed to a plaster tape to identify which cause a reaction.

Kathryn A. Zug, M.D., of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, N.H., and colleagues analyzed results from 391 children age 18 and younger who underwent patch testing between 2001 and 2004.

They compared results of the pediatric population to a group of 9,670 adults (age 19 and older) who were tested during the same time period.

Children and adults tested positive for at least one allergen at approximately the same rate (51.2 percent for children vs. 54.1 percent for adults).

U.S. researchers reported that a usually harmless childhood virus may hide in the lungs and come back to cause wheezing and other symptoms of asthma.

They found evidence that respiratory syncytial virus or RSV stayed in the lungs of mice and caused the overactive airway symptoms that characterize asthma.

“This research suggests that there’s a potential new mechanism for asthma related to viral infections in children that could be associated with RSV,” pediatrician Dr. Asuncion Mejias of the University of Texas Southwestern, who led the study, said in a statement.

“These findings could aid in the development of preventive and therapeutic interventions for children with recurrent wheezing due to a virus such as RSV.”

Nearly every child is infected with RSV early in life, and the virus usually clears up without serious complications in about a week.

But 3 percent to 10 percent of infants with RSV infections develop severe bronchitis and must be treated in the hospital.

Doctors also thought the body quickly cleared itself of those types of viruses. The researchers said it may persist in some children.

They previously showed that RSV infection could raise the likelihood of chronic lung disease in mice.

Warmer weather, spring showers, blossoming trees and budding flowers are all signs that mark the arrival of spring. For kids, it is a fun outdoors time.

However, for many, the arrival of spring signifies the start of allergy season.

Rather than fun picnics and patio cocktails, it means the arrival of itchy, watery eyes, stuffy nose, runny nose, sneezing and coughing.

For allergy sufferers, spring is often the most awful time of the year. For children, in particular, allergies can cause havoc, as the reaction of the immune system is similar in effect to the invasion of foreign substances on the body.

According to doctors, distinguishing spring allergies from the common cold is very hard, as the symptoms are often very similar. The most common symptoms include itchy nose and eyes, runny nose and sneezing, watery eyes, dark circles under eyes, sore throat, and dry cough.

Allergy symptoms can be caused by a range of things, from pollen to molds, fungi and dust mites. The pollen of weeds, grasses, trees and mold releases a very fine powder to pollinate and fertilize other plants and it is this powder which causes spring allergies in most children.

Some cell phone users may get a skin rash in reaction to the nickel in their cell phones, a condition that the British Association of Dermatologists has dubbed “mobile phone dermatitis.”

The British Association of Dermatologists issued a news to inform doctors to be aware of the allergic reaction.

Nickel allergy is common, and people who are allergic to nickel may get a rash on their cheek or ear if they spend a lot of time talking on a cell phone containing nickel.

They might also get a rash on the fingers if they send lots of text messages, according to the association.

Not all cell phones contain nickel. Earlier this year, researchers at Brown University tested 22 wireless communication devices and found that 10 of them contained nickel.

The researchers — who included dermatologist Lionel Bercovitch, MD, of Brown’s Warren Alpert Medical School — saw a pattern in which types of phones contain nickel and which don’t.

“Cell phones intended for rugged use … often have rubber coating and no surface nickel. Those with more fashionable designs often have metallic accents and are more likely to contain free nickel in their casings,” Bercovitch and colleagues told.

Asthma sufferers who regularly take the beta2-agonist formoterol are more likely to suffer non-fatal serious adverse events than those given placebos.

A review carried out by Cochrane Researchers showed a significantly increased risk for people who took the drug once or twice daily for at least 12 weeks.

Long-acting beta2-agonists are inhaled to help open the airways and last for 12 hours or more, but their long-term use is controversial.

Recent research has cast doubt on the safety of salmeterol. Now researchers are calling into question the safety of the related drug formoterol.

“Our findings are similar to those of a review published earlier this year, which found that regular salmeterol causes an increase in non-fatal adverse events,” says lead researcher of both studies, Christopher Cates, who works in Community Health Sciences at St George’s, London.

22 studies involving 8,032 people diagnosed with asthma were included in the latest review. In those studies that compared formoterol to a placebo, 16 patients per thousand taking formoterol suffered serious adverse effects, whilst only 10 per thousand taking placebos were similarly affected.

Serious adverse effects were most commonly asthma–related. The increase in adverse events was more marked in younger patients.

A link between breast feeding and a lower incidence in asthma in young children has discovered by University of Sunderland academic.

Dr Mohammad Shamssain and his research team recently completed a two phase study into the prevalence and severity of asthma in children in the North-East.

Their research focussed specifically on the positive benefits of breast feeding in the prevention of asthma, and also the effect of obesity on the prevalence of asthma among young children.

Dr Shamssain and his team analysed 7,000 school children in the region aged 6-15 years.

The team discovered that children who had been breast fed for six months or more had a significantly reduced risk of asthma - particularly among young boys.

Dr Shamssain says: “Breastfed children showed lower prevalence rates of asthma, allergic rhinitis and eczema, and the effect of breast feeding was more evident in boys than girls.

Asthma and wheeze were resolved significantly earlier in breastfed children than those who were not breastfed.”

The University of Sunderland team discovered that breast feeding lowers the incidence of allergic disorders, and that children breast fed from 4-9 months had a significantly lower risk of asthma. Those breast fed up to 7-9 months had lower instances of persistence wheezing and coughing.