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In the future, asthmatic children may be able to monitor their condition using breath analysing sensors built into their mobile phones. Thanks to a UK company who have embedded a carbon nanotube sensor, which can monitor nitric oxide (NO) levels in exhaled breath, into mobiles. '200 different chemicals are exhaled in your breath,' says Victor Higgs, managing director of Applied Nanodetectors, during a demonstration of his company's latest prototype at the Nano and emerging technologies forum 09 in London this week. And these can be used to monitor and diagnose a wide range of diseases.  Nanotube sensors inside mobile phones could potentially be used...

I don’t often write about alternative remedies for serious medical conditions. Most have little more than anecdotal support, and few have been found effective in well-designed clinical trials. Such trials randomly assign patients to one of two or more treatments and, wherever possible, assess the results without telling either the patients or evaluators who received which treatment. Now, however, in describing an alternative treatment for asthma that does not yet have top clinical ratings in this country (although it is taught in Russian medical schools and covered by insurance in Australia), I am going beyond my usually stringent research criteria...

The Food and Drug Administration last month called on manufacturers of leukotriene inhibitors to include safety precautions on their drug's labeling, because of reports of neuropsychiatric events in patients taking these drugs. The FDA said the reported neuropsychiatric events included cases of agitation, aggression, anxiety, dream abnormalities and hallucinations, depression, insomnia, irritability, restlessness, suicidal ideation and behavior, and tremor in patients using montelukast (Singulair), zafirlukast (Accolate), and zileuton (Zyflo, Zyflo CR). Manufacturers of these drugs were asked to submit all available clinical trial data for these products for the safety review that concluded in April. In its review, the FDA...

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, better known as NASA, said in July that it had found the "smoking gun" that caused the space shuttle Columbia to break apart as it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on Feb. 1: a piece of foam that had peeled off the external fuel tank and struck the shuttle's wing 1 minute and 22 seconds after liftoff. But many experts looking at the tragedy that killed seven astronauts say there is a deeper cause. They say that the metaphorical smoking gun should be painted green. Because of demands that the agency help to front for...

Link only, per rule: Health Buzz: Fried Insects Bad for Asthma

Mepolizumab prevents some ER visits in people with a severe form of asthma An experimental drug called mepolizumab can prevent severe asthma attacks in people with an uncommon form of the disease that responds poorly to standard steroid medications, researchers report in two studies in the March 5 New England Journal of Medicine. Scientists from Britain and Canada also find that a simple test of sputum (coughed up matter) can reveal which patients would most likely benefit from mepolizumab. Thus the drug might help some people with asthma reduce the use of steroids such as prednisone, which have side effects,...

Infecting patients with worms 'could hold key to treating asthma' Infecting patients with worms could hold the key to treating asthma and other conditions on the rise because of the modern obsession with cleanliness, scientists believe. By Kate Devlin 28 Jan 2009 Researchers are testing whether parasitic worms can stimulate patients' immune systems to fight illnesses. The worms have been all but eliminated from humans in developed countries, because of an increased emphasis on hygiene. But experts believe their absence could be one of the reasons why some illnesses, including asthma and diabetes, are increasingly prevalent. A trial by scientists...

WASHINGTON — Two federal drug officials have concluded that asthma sufferers risk death if they continue to use four hugely popular asthma drugs — Advair, Symbicort, Serevent and Foradil. But the officials’ views are not universally shared within the government. The two officials, who work in the safety division of the Food and Drug Administration, wrote in an assessment on the agency’s Web site on Friday that asthma sufferers of all ages should no longer take the medicines. A third drug-safety official concluded that Advair and Symbicort could be used by adults but that all four drugs should no longer...

A federal ban on ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), to conform to the Clean Air Act, is, ironically, affecting 22.9 million people in the United States who suffer from asthma, says Scientific American. Generic inhaled albuterol -- the most commonly prescribed short-acting asthma medication that requires CFCs to propel it into the lungs -- will no longer be legally sold after December 21, 2008. As more patients see their prescriptions change and costs go up -- the reformulated brand-name alternatives can be three times as expensive, raising the cost to about $40 per inhaler -- many question why this ban must begin...

ScienceDaily (May 30, 2008) — A presentation that demonstrates breathing exercises designed to help reduce the use of asthma inhalers is today available to the general public for free from the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Asthma and Airways website. The 40 minute production is in response to a research paper on the management of asthma through the use of breathing exercises, conducted by researchers and doctors at Sydney's Woolcock Institute of Medical Research and Melbourne's Alfred Hospital, which was published in the August 20061 edition of Thorax. The results of this study showed that asthmatics who undertook regular breathing...

The following petition has 2,200 signatures. Also please file any complaints with the FDA (Medwatch Reporting Form). Here is the link. https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/medwatch/medwatch-online.htm Find the blue Begin button to the right to start. Text of petition: The FDA, in compliance with the Montreal Protocol, has banned the use of life-saving CFC propellant albuterol asthma rescue inhalers in order to help restore the ozone layer, even though it has been widely acknowledged that these CFC inhaler emissions are too trivial to harm the ozone layer: Leslie Hendeles, University of Florida Professor of Pharmacy and Pediatrics, has noted that CFC inhalers release negligible...

FRIDAY, May 30 (HealthDay News) -- Asthma inhalers that contain the drug albuterol to relax the airways also contain chemicals that harm the ozone layer. And these inhalers won't be available after this year, so U.S. health officials are urging patients to switch to alternative inhalers now. Chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, are widely used to propel inhaled drugs into the lungs. However, products containing CFCs are being phased out, because the chemicals damage the Earth's protective ozone layer. CFC inhalers are being replaced by inhalers powered by HFAs, or hydrofluoroalkanes, which are ozone-friendly. The change to HFA-powered inhalers has been in...

WASHINGTON - The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday it is investigating a possible link between Merck’s best-selling asthma drug, Singulair, and suicide. FDA said it is reviewing reports of mood changes, suicidal behavior and suicide in patients who have taken the popular drug also used for allergies. Merck has updated the drug’s labeling four times in the past year to include information on a range of side effects: tremors, anxiousness, depression and suicidal behavior.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Those all-over body sprays that promise to turn teenage boys into babe magnets? Instead of attracting girls, they could be making them sick. A Minnesota lawmaker proposed a bill Monday urging a fragrance-free educational campaign to discourage students from dousing themselves in scents that aggravate classmates with asthma and other health problems. Odors that fill hallways come mostly from boys who douse themselves in body sprays like Axe, said Mikolai Altenberg, a senior at Minneapolis South High School. He said the smell is "indescribable" and unavoidable. "You can smell it from 10 feet away," Altenberg...

A woman in her late teens died from an acute asthma attack triggered by secondhand cigarette smoke shortly after arriving at her job as a waitress in a bar in Michigan, researchers reported on Friday.

This is the problem with the politicians, and especially those who are so worried about the environment: They forget what and who is important -- people. The reason I say this is because of what has happened with prescription inhalers used for asthma treatment. I recently needed to refill my inhaler and was told by the local pharmacist that the inhaler was now different because it contained ingredients that harmed the ozone layer. However, these ingredients were the most effective for helping calm down an asthma attack. I was also informed by the pharmacy that since the medication was altered,...

Roundworms may infect close to a quarter of inner city black children, tapeworms are the leading cause of seizures among U.S. Hispanics and other parasitic diseases associated with poor countries are also affecting Americans, a U.S. expert said on Tuesday. Recent studies show many of the poorest Americans living in the United States carry some of the same parasitic infections that affect the poor in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, said Dr. Peter Hotez, a tropical disease expert at George Washington University and editor-in-chief of the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases. Writing in the journal, Hotez...

Much of what is known about the health problems of ground zero workers comes from a small clinic in Manhattan that at the time of the trade center collapse had only six full-time doctors and a tiny budget. Yet in the weeks after 9/11, its doctors stepped into the fray in the absence of any meaningful effort by the city, state or federal government to survey, interview or offer treatment to potentially sickened recovery and cleanup workers. Since then, the clinic, the Irving J. Selikoff Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine, based at Mount Sinai Medical Center, has examined more...

Children ages 5 to 11 with asthma require different treatment than do adults, guidelines issued yesterday by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute say. The new guidelines are the first to recognize that this age group has distinct needs and should not be lumped together with adults, as has been done in the past. Specifically, these children can often control their asthma with inhalers that contain only steroid drugs, whereas adults are more likely to need inhalers that combine steroids and other medicines. (The steroids used to treat asthma are different from the ones that athletes take to bulk...

Rescue and recovery workers at ground zero have developed asthma at a rate that is 12 times what would be expected for adults, according to findings released yesterday by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Of nearly 26,000 workers surveyed in 2003 and 2004, 926 reported that they developed asthma for the first time after working at ground zero (a rate of 3.6 percent). In a group that size, under normal conditions, no more than 77 new cases of asthma (0.3 percent) would have been expected, according to the report, which is published in the current...

NEW YORK (AP) -- An image of a sad-looking little girl squeezing an asthma inhaler is being used to pressure state lawmakers into approving Mayor Michael Bloomberg's controversial plan to reduce traffic and pollution by charging motorists who drive into Manhattan. The tag line: ``She cannot hold her breath waiting for Albany to act.'' The flier is being mailed this week to 350,000 households throughout the city, urging residents to call lawmakers in Albany. The state legislature would have to come back for a special session to approve the plan before a July 16 application deadline for federal funding. Bloomberg's...

The use of antibiotics in the first year of life is associated with an increased risk for asthma at age 7, a new study has found, and the reason may be that antibiotics destroy not only disease-causing microbes, but also those that are helpful to the developing immune system. Antibiotic use had a greater impact on children who would otherwise be considered at lower risk — children who lived in rural areas and those whose mothers did not have asthma — than on those who were already at increased risk because of an urban environment or genetic predisposition. Studies of...

ALBANY, June 11 — Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, in his strongest language yet against Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plan to charge people who drive into the most congested parts of Manhattan during the day, questioned the health benefits of the proposal yesterday. He also suggested that many of the environmental goals Mr. Bloomberg has outlined could be accomplished without congestion pricing. His comments suggested that two hours of testimony by Mayor Bloomberg at an Assembly hearing on Friday had not swayed the Democrats who control the chamber. Mr. Silver even seemed to outline new concerns, saying that the plan could...

In the first clinical study to clearly link World Trade Center dust to serious and sometimes fatal diseases, doctors have found that the number of New York City rescue and recovery workers with a rare type of lung-scarring condition soared in the year after the trade center collapsed. Doctors from the Fire Department and at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine found that 13 firefighters and emergency medical service workers with the department developed sarcoidosis, a debilitating illness in which the lungs and other organs develop inflammation that produces lumps of cells, called granulomas. The illness can be controlled with...

Salve for the Lungs: Aspirin might prevent asthma Ben Harder Regular use of aspirin may prevent healthy adults from developing asthma, according to a 5-year study of male doctors. Inflammation in the lungs characterizes asthma. During an attack, inflamed airways constrict, obstructing air flow. The disease affects about 5 percent of men and more than 8 percent of women and children. It most frequently develops during childhood, and some kids outgrow it. For the current study, epidemiologist Tobias Kurth of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and his colleagues analyzed data on some 22,000 male physicians who had participated in...

More than 1 million residents of the Washington-Baltimore region already live close to heavily trafficked motorways where dangerous soot pollution is at levels that can trigger asthma attacks, heart attacks and respiratory disease. Building the $2.4 billion (and rising), 18-mile intercounty connector linking Interstate 270 to Interstate 95 through neighborhoods and near schools would worsen these health problems. Maryland Gov.-elect Martin O'Malley (D) reiterated his support for the road following his election last month, but if the public demands protection for our children and the elderly, he still could take steps to prevent these health hazards. The toxic pollution the...

When our first son developed asthma as a 3-year-old, my husband and I felt pretty much blindsided. We were only a little less shocked when the same thing happened to our second son, at the same age. The disease turned out to be tenacious, and for years both boys needed inhalers or a nebulizer machine several times a day to prevent asthma attacks that could keep them up half the night, coughing and wheezing. Both had eczema, too, and the kind of food allergies — to nuts, peanuts and shellfish — that can lead to fatal reactions. What caused all...

In New York City, air pollution levels have typically been monitored by inanimate objects, at more than a dozen locations around town. But in the South Bronx, from 2002 to 2005, air pollution monitors went mobile. They went to the playground, to the gritty sidewalks, even to the movies. A group of schoolchildren carried the monitors everywhere they went. The instruments, attached to the backpacks of children with asthma, allowed researchers at New York University to measure the pollution the children were exposed to, morning to night. The South Bronx is home to miles of expressways, more than a dozen...

Los Angeles -- The father of a 5-year-old asthmatic girl has sued the apartment complex where the family lives in an attempt to stop residents from smoking in common areas. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Superior Court, alleges that second-hand smoke from common areas around the complex have hurt Melinda Birke's health. The areas include the swimming pools, the barbecue areas, the children's playground, the outdoor dining area and the entrances to the rental office and clubhouse. The girl has had pneumonia three times since 2003, and has suffered from asthma and chronic allergies since she was 18 months old,...

WEDNESDAY, March 15 (HealthDay News) -- As medical technologies improve, researchers are rooting out more information about possible causes of common diseases, such as asthma.One new finding, reported in the March 16 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, is that immune system cells long thought to cause asthma may not be the primary culprit behind the disease."We found that asthma is caused not by T-helper 2 cells as has been previously thought, but by a novel class of cells called natural killer T cells," said one of the study's authors, Dr. Dale Umetsu, a professor of pediatrics at...

Eco-terrorists have struck again. Not in the dead of night, to be pursued by diligent agents of the FBI, but right out in the open, in a public meeting, under the auspices of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). On January 24, one of those ubiquitous FDA panels of "outside experts" voted, by an 11 to seven margin, to recommend that FDA ban non-prescription, over-the-counter asthma inhalers, used routinely by millions of asthma-sufferers to control the symptoms of their debilitating condition. As frequently noted in the press, while such recommendations are not binding, they are most often adopted. The...

Listeners to KNYE radio heard from owner Art Bell on the air Tuesday morning, during a break in his music format, broadcast on 95.1 FM from Pahrump. The recent widower, whose wife Ramona was laid to rest just last week, spoke lovingly of her, saying he knew she would want him to keep KNYE running. Bell said his wife handled all their finances, mentioning that he didn't even know the PIN number on his bank account. He also doesn't cook. "It was my intention to leave a rich widow," Bell said. "Not the other way around." He announced he will...

While both inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) and leukotriene receptor antagonists (LTRA) have been proven to help control mild-to-moderate persistent asthma in school-age children, a new study shows ICS may be the more effective treatment. Response Profiles to Fluticasone and Montelukast in Mild-to-Moderate Persistent Childhood Asthma is featured in the January 2006 issue of the Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology (JACI) and is currently available on the JACI's Web site at www.jacionline.org. The JACI is the peer-reviewed, scientific journal of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI). The 16-week study was conducted as a multi-center, double-masked, 2-sequence crossover trial...

Art Bell's beloved wife of fifteen years, Ramona, died unexpectedly last night after an asthma attack. At present, the exact cause of Mrs. Bell's death has not been determined. It apparently took place during her sleep. Until her death, Art and Ramona Bell had not been apart a day since they were married. Mrs. Bell had suffered from asthma for years, and took her normal steps to control the attack, which occured sometime last night in Laughlin, Nevada where the Bells were taking a brief vacation. Ramona Bell was 47 years old.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Not being able to blow hard enough for a breath test for alcohol is not the same as refusing to take the test, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled. The 3-1 ruling Friday reversed a Hancock Superior Court decision. The case involved a woman who was charged with refusing a breath test under Indiana's implied consent law following an accident in which she was suspected of drunken driving. According to court documents, a Hancock County sheriff's deputy administered field sobriety tests, including a portable breath test, to Meredith Upchurch after a December 2004 traffic accident. The deputy then...

ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON -- The Food and Drug Administration warned Friday that three asthma drugs may increase the risk of severe asthma attacks and even death. The agency asked the manufacturers of Advair, Serevent and Foradil to strengthen the warning labels to reflect this risk. The FDA said that even though the drugs decrease the frequency of asthma attacks, they can make the attacks more severe when they occur. The agency said the drugs should be prescribed only if other medicines do not control patients' asthma. Advair had sales of $4.7 billion in 2004, making it one of GlaxoSmithKline's top-selling...

Researchers at The University of Manchester funded by the Fungal Research Trust have discovered millions of fungal spores right under our noses - in our pillows. Aspergillus fumigatus, the species most commonly found in the pillows, is most likely to cause disease; and the resulting condition Aspergillosis has become the leading infectious cause of death in leukaemia and bone marrow transplant patients. Fungi also exacerbate asthma in adults. The researchers dissected both feather and synthetic samples and identified several thousand spores of fungus per gram of used pillow - more than a million spores per pillow. Fungal contamination of bedding...

NEW ORLEANS - Wearing goggles, gloves, galoshes and a mask, Veronica Randazzo lasted only 10 minutes inside her home in St. Bernard Parish. Her eyes burned, her mouth filled with a salty taste and she felt nauseous. Her 26-year-old daughter, Alicia, also covered in gear, came out coughing. "That mold," she said. "It smells like death." Mold now forms an interior version of kudzu in the soggy South, posing health dangers that will make many homes tear-downs and will force schools and hospitals to do expensive repairs.

Irish scientists are investigating parasitic worms to try to find new ways to prevent asthma and reduce allergies.Dr Padraic Fallon, from Trinity College Dublin, and colleagues have already managed to cure asthma in lab mice by infecting them with the tiny creatures. The team now has to explain how the parasites achieve this feat at a molecular level. If they can do that, they should then be able to synthesise a new drug compound to treat asthma in people. On the riseAsthma and other allergies have increased almost threefold over the last 30 years in many developed countries, including...

Pollen, dust mites and pet allergens, sure. But laughter? Yes, says a new study that suggests that laughing should be added to the list of things that can set off an asthma attack. The research was presented at a recent conference of the American Thoracic Society. The author of the study, Dr. Stuart M. Garay, said he had established the connection between laughter and asthma attacks in a survey of patients at the New York University Medical Center, where he teaches. More than half of the 235 patients surveyed reported that laughing set off their attacks. It ranked with better...

For asthmatics, laughter is no laughing matter Fri May 27, 2005 1:08 PM ET By Alison McCook NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - More than half of people with asthma have symptoms that are triggered by laughter, according to new study findings presented this week. Laughter is "one more trigger in a long list of triggers" for asthma, study author Dr. Stuart Garay of the New York University Medical Center in New York told Reuters Health. However, among people with symptoms brought on by laughter, nearly half said they could laugh attack-free when their asthma was under better control. To Garay,...

HYDERABAD: The asthma fish medicine mela, for decades an annual fixture of the Hyderabadi summer, is coming under attack from a coalition of rationalists, scientists and allopathy doctors. On Thursday, almost a fortnight before this year's chapter, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) has entered the fray and demanded a ban on the medicine, which is shoved into the mouth of a live fish and administered to asthma patients.Lakhs of people come to Hyderabad on Mrigasira Karte day (this year, June 8) in the belief that the medicine, which the Bathini Goud brothers claim is a family secret of 147 years,...

Grandchildren of smokers at risk NEW research suggests women who smoke while pregnant are putting their grandchildren as well as their children at risk, writes Jonathan Leake. The study suggests that some of the chemicals in smoke can permanently alter the DNA of those exposed to it in ways that can be inherited by smokers’ children, grandchildren and possibly subsequent generations too. The researchers analysed asthma rates in both the children and grandchildren of women who smoked during pregnancy. They found the grandchildren of such women had 2.1 times the normal risk of developing asthma. The children of women who...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cockroaches worsen asthma symptoms in children far more than furry pets or dust mites, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday. High-rise apartments in Northeastern U.S. cities were the worst places for the allergic effects of cockroaches, the team at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas found. Single-family houses were the worst for dust mites -- miscroscopic creatures that live in bedding and furniture. "We found that a majority of homes in Chicago, New York City and the Bronx had cockroach allergen levels high enough to trigger asthma symptoms, while a majority of homes in Dallas...

In reference to the story "Smoking ban for bars on Legislative agenda" on Feb. 14 by John Zicconi, all I can say is "Hogwash." I own a successful bar in Greenwich Village. In 2004, we were voted the Best Lounge in New York by CitySearch. My business is down 30 percent since 2002. Since nothing has changed but the smoking ban, I can attribute this precipitous drop to nothing else. It's remarkable to read that "A New York City official on Thursday will travel to Vermont to testify that Big Apple pub receipts have increased 12 percent since the city's...

SOMETIMES, late at night, little Samantha Rodriguez cries in her bed. The 3-year-old's skin cracks and burns from the eczema that has plagued her since birth. And her weak, small lungs wheeze and cough from chronic asthma. Her mom, Regina Rodriguez, just holds onto her daughter, helplessly. Regina, 25, is three months pregnant now with her second child. And what her growing family needs more desperately than anything, she knows, is fresh air. Perhaps a dash of sunshine on their faces. But living in the South Bronx, bunched up amid a bus stop, factories and the malodorous traffic of the...

Do people who enjoy smoking have any rights? Increasingly, the answer is no. It is essential to keep in mind that smoking cigarettes, cigars, or pipes is an entirely personal choice. No one is required to smoke. Millions voluntarily stop smoking every year. People have been smoking, and enjoying tobacco products for a very long time, but now they have been demonized and ostracized. Using the power of government, to tax, smokers are being ripped off at every level. Recently, New York City sent letters to 2,300 residents giving them thirty days to pay the taxes on the cartons of...

Concerned about the booming trade in online cigarette sales, New York state officials have begun using a variety of techniques to clamp down on the trade, saying New York City alone is losing more than $75 million a year in uncollected tax revenues because of the sales.In recent weeks, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has been pushing local postal officials and private carriers to stop delivering cigarettes bought online. His office has also recently begun negotiations with credit card companies to block transactions of online cigarettes.These efforts were given added push recently as local officials from the federal Bureau of Alcohol,...

Controversy doesn't deter prominent doctors from hailing the enigmatic Dr. Heimlich SINCE CO-DISCOVERING the "sub-diaphragmatic thrust" in 1974, Dr. Henry Heimlich's namesake maneuver has irrefutably saved the lives of thousands of choking diners the world over. But despite dogged self-promotion, Heimlich's subsequent medical maneuvers have been thoroughly panned by the medical intelligentsia. Along the way, the 84-year-old Cincinnati-based thoracic surgeon has allied himself with a small band of respected medical professionals, including the director of the Salt Lake County Health Department from 1971 to 1993, Dr. Harry Gibbons. The two met in 1974 when Gibbons, an aerospace physician by trade,...

There is a connection between exposure of domestic cleaning products and wheezing in toddlers, which is an early sign of asthma, according to new research. The study of 14,000 children up to the age of three and a half, published in the journal Thorax found that exposure to household products such as bleach, aerosols, carpet and window cleaners increased the risk of wheezing. Youngsters born into the top ten per cent of families using such products the most were more than twice as likely to suffer from wheezing compared to the bottom ten per cent, who used them the least....