Archive for November, 2008

Peanut allergy is one of the most common allergies in the United States, afflicting up to 1.5 million Americans and killing about 100 people a year.

To prevent an allergy from developing, doctors have recommended that small children and nursing mothers avoid peanuts.

But recent studies questioned if early exposure limited the allergy or increased the risk, perhaps explaining a rise in allergies.

The latest study, published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, found that early exposure might provoke tolerance.

The authors examined two populations of genetically similar children, more than 8,000 in all. In one group, most ate peanuts by 9 months; those in the other had little or no early exposure. The scientists found the unexposed children were six times as likely to develop the allergy.

Dr. Robert A. Wood, a pediatric immunology expert at Johns Hopkins, said the research was intriguing but not final, and parents should be cautious.

Some children may be genetically destined to be allergic. Parents should be on the lookout for infants who show allergies to other things or have a family history of allergy.

Source: The New York Times

Creating a healthy environment at home is very important for everyone, particularly for those who suffer from asthma. It is, however, impossible to control the outside triggers of the illness.

You consequently have to be extra careful when controlling asthma triggers around your home.

To control asthma successfully, you first have to identify the potential triggers of asthma in your environment and follow certain measures to completely eliminate them from your living space.

Tips to control asthma triggers at home:

Avoid smoking: There are almost 4,000 chemicals in smoking products that can cause harm to your lungs. These powerful irritants can linger on walls, clothing and furniture and in your home’s duct work. Avoid smoking in your home at all costs.

Use exhaust fans: Cooking smoke that contains grease carried by air currents settles on surfaces to create a sticky film. This aerosolized oil possibly triggers asthma. It is preferable for you to use exhaust fans in your kitchens and fireplaces to eliminate smoke from your home.

Avoid home air purifiers: Home air-purifiers trigger asthma flare-ups as they produce ozone in your home. Choose other alternatives to purify air in your home.

Guests with asthma, respiratory disease will enjoy the party if hosts plan wisely.

When hosting for the holiday season, be aware that one in six American suffer from either allergies or asthma.

The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology offers these tips for party throwers to help ensure their guests’ asthma and allergy symptoms don’t rear up:

• Ask guests about food allergies before planning your menu. Even trace amounts of an offending food can trigger a reaction. Know what is in each dish and avoid cross-contamination by thoroughly washing utensils, cookware and food storage containers between uses.
• Minimize dust mites, animal dander and other allergens by dusting and vacuuming regularly in the weeks before the event. Vacuum upholstered furniture and drapery as well as carpets.
• Clean or replace furnace air filters so they trap allergens better.
• If people are staying overnight, clean their rooms thoroughly the day they arrive, including washing sheets and pillowcases in hot water.
• Keep pets out of guests’ rooms and, if necessary, confined to another area of the house, such as the basement.
• Limit fragrant candles, plants and potpourris. Apply perfume conservatively.

When it comes to babies and asthma, timing is everything.

A new study shows that babies born four months before the peak of winter virus season are more likely to develop childhood asthma than babies born at any other time of year; that’s because the timing increases the chance of a viral respiratory infection during infancy, which in turn increases the risk of childhood asthma.

The date that winter virus season peaks can vary from year to year.

Asthma is an increasingly important health concern. The prevalence of asthma increased 100% worldwide between 1985 and 2001, according to background information in the study. About 300 million people have asthma. Deaths from asthma are expected to increase 20% during the next decade.

Researchers looked at medical records of 95,310 children born between 1995 and 2000 and followed their health status until 2005. The children were all born in Tennessee and enrolled in the state’s Medicaid program, called TennCare.

Scientists have known for some time that there is a link between infant viral respiratory infections and childhood asthma.

However, they did not know whether viral respiratory infections cause asthma or whether the infections are simply a sign that a child is genetically predisposed to develop asthma.

Do you love the look and smell of gardens, but are concerned about allergies? There is no need to limit your yard to stones and concrete, if you or any family members suffer from allergies.

There are many plants that are free from pollen and other allergens, which you can include in your garden.

With just a little planning and information, even those with the most stubborn sneezes and sniffles can enjoy the wholesome benefits of gardening. Here are a few useful gardening strategies for allergy sufferers:

Avoid plants that attract mildew or aphids

Plants that are grown in the wrong place fail to thrive and may attract insects or mildew. Consequently, bug-infected, mildewed plants produce moulds and other allergenic spore. Try to avoid plants that tend to attract mildew and set about finding the right spot for plant growth.

Avoid plants that rely on breezes

If you have airborne allergies, un-incidental contact with pollen creates unwanted allergic reactions such as watery eyes, itching, sneezes, etc. If you avoid plants that completely rely on breezes to transport pollen, it can help you to alleviate allergic reactions.

Hire gardeners

Traffic pollution, especially in cities, adversely affects respiratory health in children with asthma.

A study published in BioMed Central’s open access journal Respiratory Research has found that in this vulnerable group, worsening of respiratory symptoms requiring recurrent additional treatment.

A Mexican research team led by Dr Isabelle Romieu of the Institute Nacional de Sauld Publica, correlated pollutants associated with exacerbation of respiratory symptoms in asthmatic children.

Earlier studies suggest that traffic pollution, and diesel particles in particular, may have a greater effect on respiratory health than other pollutants.

This is significant as a large proportion of pollution in cities originates from motor vehicles. At present, no studies have clearly linked different types of vehicular traffic exhaust to respiratory health of either asthmatic or healthy children.

147 asthmatic children and 50 non-asthmatic children, between the ages of 6 and 14, were recruited through a paediatric hospital in Mexico City.

Parents kept a daily record of coughing and wheezing experienced by their children, as well as medication usage.

Atmospheric levels of the pollutants ozone, nitrogen dioxide and diesel particles were recorded in Mexico City during the study.

Read more at Medical News Today

Allergy shots given directly to the lymph nodes may bring quicker allergy relief than traditional allergy shots, according to the researchers.

They studied 183 adults with hay fever, splitting the patients into two groups.

One group of patients got three allergy shots to their lymph nodes over two months (one shot at the study’s start, a second shot four weeks later, and the third shot eight weeks into the study).

Patients in the other group got traditional immunotherapy, consisting of 54 under-the-skin (subcutaneous) allergy shots spread over three years.

Patients in the lymph node group had three advantages over patients in the subcutaneous group:

• Milder allergic reactions to the shots
• Quicker improvement in tolerance to their allergen
• Less use of “rescue” medicines to relieve allergy symptoms

Three years later, the lymph node shots hadn’t worn off, though patients in both groups reported similar degrees of improvement in their allergy symptoms.

People might be more willing to get lymph node shots because fewer shots are required and they are “practically painless,” write the researchers, who included Thomas Kundig, MD, of Switzerland’s University Hospital Zurich.

Source: WebMD

In children with both asthma and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), treating the latter can improve the former, according to the research.

GERD is a common disease in which fluid from the stomach backs up into the esophagus, typically causing chronic heartburn and other symptoms, which can lead to erosion of the esophagus.

In addition to drugs that reduce the secretion of this acidic fluid, GERD may be treated with a type of surgery called fundoplication that tightens the junction between the esophagus and stomach.

Previous studies in adults have suggested that as many as four out of five asthmatics experience the chronic cough and hoarseness of acid reflux.

While the connections between asthma and GERD remain unclear, researchers have noticed that antireflux medications can sometimes help asthma symptoms.

“About two thirds of patients with asthma have underlying reflux and GERD has been implicated in provoking asthma,” Dr. Vikram Khoshoo, a pediatric gastroenterologist from West Jefferson Medical Center, New Orleans, who was involved in the study, told.

To investigate this relationship further, he and his colleagues had 62 children, between 6 and 11 years old, with asthma undergo esophageal acid testing.

Few people know that gold and silver metals can cause allergies, or that the nickel content in gold and silver can cause jewelry allergies.

Because pure gold and silver metals are too soft to be moulded or mounted, jewelers mix nickel, zinc or copper to make it easier to produce a desired shape or form.

While zinc and copper do not harm your sensitive skin, nickel can irritate your skin and causes allergic symptoms, which means you are actually allergic to nickel metal, not the jewelry itself.

While it can affect anyone, jewelry allergy is most commonly experienced by women who see their personal jewelry as part of their daily dress and their most precious possession. Here are a few tips for you to manage jewelry allergy in an effective way:

Recognize that you have jewelry allergy

An allergic reaction usually appears soon after contact with the item, but it can take months or years of comfortable wear before surfacing.

For some, it is easy to realize and recognize that an allergy is developing. For others, though, the clues are more subtle, especially if the person hasn’t had previous episodes of the allergy.

New research casts doubt on government health recommendations that infants and new mothers avoid eating peanuts to prevent development of food allergy.

The study shows that children who avoided peanut in infancy and early childhood were 10 times as likely to develop peanut allergy as those who were exposed to peanut.

Researchers measured the incidence of peanut allergy in 8,600 Jewish school-age children in the United Kingdom and Israel.

They compared these results with data on peanut consumption collected from mothers of infants age 4 to 24 months.

Prevalence of peanut allergy in the United Kingdom was estimated at 1.85 percent, versus .17 percent in Israel.

“The most obvious difference in the diet of infants in both populations occurs in the introduction of peanut,” lead author George Du Toit, MD, FAAAAI, wrote in the article.

At 9 months of age, 69 percent of Israeli children were eating peanut, compared to 10 percent of those in the U.K.

Dietary guidelines in the United Kingdom, Australia and - until earlier this year - the United States advise avoidance of peanut consumption during pregnancy, breastfeeding and infancy.

Read more at Medical News Today