Asthma News and Research

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Asthma is a common inflammatory disease affecting the airways that leads to shortness of breath, coughing and wheezing. Symptoms range from mild to severe but are generally manageable with appropriate treatment.

Highly active antiretroviral therapy might increase risk of asthma in young children

Highly active antiretroviral therapy might increase the risk of asthma among children because of the therapy's effect on the immune system and CD4+ T cell levels, according to a study recently published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Reuters reports.

29 Aug 2008

New beta-blocker for heart disease and angina

Researchers at The University of Nottingham have been awarded £2.8 million by the Wellcome Trust to develop a new drug that could ease the suffering of hundreds of thousands of heart disease patients who are unable to take beta-blockers.

28 Aug 2008

New cutting edge laser technology provides view into body's chemical messenger system

Researchers at The University of Nottingham have developed a unique technology that will allow scientists to look at microscopic activity within the body's chemical messenger system for the very first time, live as it happens.

28 Aug 2008

Researchers partner with moms to overcome breastfeeding obstacles

The message, "breast is best" may be familiar and powerful, but it's not enough to get some women to breastfeed. A new University of Rochester Medical Center project creates a partnership with mothers who are not likely to breastfeed exclusively, and tries to improve the rates by first understanding their perspective and obstacles.

27 Aug 2008

Researchers discover key allergy gene

Together with colleagues from the Department of Dermatology and Allergy and the Center for Allergy and Environment (ZAUM) of the Technische Universitat Munchen, scientists at the Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen have pinpointed a major gene for allergic diseases. The gene was localized using cutting edge technologies for examining the whole human genome at the Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen.

24 Aug 2008

Boys more likely to grow out of asthma

According to researchers in the U.S. boys are more likely than girls to grow out of childhood asthma when they reach their teenage years.

19 Aug 2008

Psychological stress and how it might affect allergy sufferers

A new study here shows that even slight stress and anxiety can substantially worsen a person's allergic reaction to some routine allergens.

14 Aug 2008

Researchers find Leishmaniasis parasites evade death by exploiting the immune response to sand fly bites

Cutaneous leishmaniasis, a disease characterized by painful skin ulcers, occurs when the parasite Leishmania major, or a related species, is transmitted to a mammalian host by the bite of an infected sand fly.

14 Aug 2008

New understanding of how white blood cell eosiniphils fights infection

U.S. and Swiss scientists have made a breakthrough in understanding how a type of white blood cell called the eosinophil may help the body to fight bacterial infections in the digestive tract, according to research published online this week in Nature Medicine

13 Aug 2008

MicroRNAs help control blood-vessel development

The development and repair of heart tissue and blood vessels is intimately tied to a tiny piece of ribonucleic acid (RNA) that is found nowhere else in the body, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found.

12 Aug 2008

New drug targets main culprit in common colds

The Melbourne drug company Biota has announced trials of a drug to treat the human rhinovirus (HRV) which is the main culprit in the common cold.

12 Aug 2008

GSK begins shipments of Fluarix and FluLaval to U.S. customers for 2008-2009 flu season

GlaxoSmithKline has announced that it will begin shipment of Flulaval [Influenza Virus Vaccine] and Fluarix [Influenza Virus Vaccine] to U.S. customers for the 2008-2009 influenza season.

11 Aug 2008

New treatment in the pipeline for leukaemia and rheumatoid arthritis

Australian scientists believe they are well on the way to developing a new treatment for leukaemia and inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and asthma.

10 Aug 2008

Use of cleaning products during pregnancy increases risk of asthma in offspring

A Brunel University researcher suggests that chemicals in household cleaning products explains why excessive hygiene is linked to increased asthma and allergies.

6 Aug 2008

Wheezing after early-life antibiotics: Blame the underlying chest infection more than the antibiotics

Children who are given antibiotics in their first three months often wheeze at 15 months of age. However, this wheezing is probably more due to the presence of chest infections than to the use of antibiotics.

6 Aug 2008

Students with food allergies often not prepared

College students with food allergies aren't avoiding the foods they know they shouldn't eat. Students of all ages are not treated with potentially life-saving epinephrine as often as they should be. And instructors, roommates and friends often are not aware of what to do if a food-allergic student has a reaction.

6 Aug 2008