Breathing News and Research

RSS

New drug to treat rare Pompe disease gets FDA approval

The Food and Drug Administration in the U.S. has given approval for the first drug to treat a rare, debilitating muscle disease that can kill infants within a year.

1 May 2006

Transplanted stem cells hoped to be able to regenerate damaged heart muscle in first heart attack victims

Rush cardiologists are hoping that transplanted stem cells can regenerate damaged heart muscle in those who experience a first heart attack. The study involves an intravenous infusion of adult mesenchymal stem cells from healthy donor bone marrow that might possibly reverse damage to heart tissue.

28 Apr 2006

Children of snorers, three times as likely to snore themselves

Children of parents who snore are three times more likely to snore themselves, according to a new study by researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Furthermore, children who test positive for allergies are twice as likely to snore.

26 Apr 2006

Corticosteroids do not improve survival in patients with late-stage acute respiratory distress syndrome

The study is the first multi-center randomized clinical trial to evaluate the effects of moderate doses of steroids in ARDS patients when treatment is started 7 days or more after the onset of the condition.

20 Apr 2006

New methods for revealing nerve-muscle activity in live animals

Picking up a pencil, running a marathon, even the simple act of breathing - every time we move a muscle we depend on a series of finely-tuned interactions at the junction of nerve fiber and muscle cell.

20 Apr 2006

Muscles burn lactic acid as well as carbos

In the lore of marathoners and extreme athletes, lactic acid is poison, a waste product that builds up in the muscles and leads to muscle fatigue, reduced performance and pain.

20 Apr 2006

New guidelines for pulmonary complications

Pulmonary complications, including pneumonia and respiratory failure, are a common - and dangerous - problem for patients following major surgery.

19 Apr 2006

If parents snore, chances are child will also

According to researchers in the U.S. if either parent is a snorer, a child is three times more likely to be a noisy sleeper.

11 Apr 2006

Passive smoking increases diabetes risk

A study published on the British Medical Journal website shows for the first time that breathing other people's smoke raises the risk of developing glucose intolerance, the precursor to diabetes.

11 Apr 2006

Antifibrotic effect of hepatocyte growth factor is impaired in lung fibroblasts isolated from African-Americans

Of the more than 40,000 persons who die each year in the U.S. from pulmonary fibrosis, the mortality rate among African-Americans is twice as high Caucasians.

11 Apr 2006

Young children born to parents who snore have an increased risk of snoring

New research published in the April issue of CHEST, shows that infants, who had at least one parent who snored frequently, were three times more likely to snore frequently than children with no parental history of snoring.

11 Apr 2006

Exposure to secondhand smoke raises the risk of diabetes

According to a new study, exposure to secondhand smoke can raise the risk of developing diabetes.

10 Apr 2006

Abdominal fat more significant than overall weight in exercise-induced shortness of breath

When it comes to being short of breath during exercise, how fat is distributed on the body is a more significant factor than overall body fatness or lung function

7 Apr 2006

Yoga improves respiratory function

Young and healthy Thais who participated in just 18 short yoga sessions showed significant improvements on six of seven measures of respiratory function, according to research from Khon Kaen University.

6 Apr 2006

Caudal raphe or the hypoglossal nucleus or both together play roles in sleep apnea

The neural pathways between two areas of the brain that control the tongue -- and their interactions with each other -- may hold the key as to why men suffer sleep apnea much more than women.

4 Apr 2006

Shape and function of the heart improves with apnea treatment

Patients with obstructive sleep apnea have enlarged and thickened hearts that pump less effectively, but the heart abnormalities improve with use of a device that helps patients breathe better during sleep, according to a new study in the April 4, 2006, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

4 Apr 2006

Link between children's sleep-related breathing problems and daytime behavior problems

Hyperactivity, attention deficit, sleepiness, and ADHD often improved - whether or not sleep studies showed sleep apnea before surgery.

4 Apr 2006

British boy dies from measles

The death of a 13 year old boy in Britain from measles is the first fatality from the infection in 14 years and has ignited concern that the once common killer is back.

3 Apr 2006

The use of record linkage to examine alcohol use in pregnancy

Babies born to women hospitalized for alcohol-related reasons during pregnancy are smaller, have lower Apgar scores and are more likely to be admitted to a special care unit, a large Australian study finds.

27 Mar 2006

Average pregnancy in the U.S. is now 39 weeks

The most common length of pregnancy in the United States is now 39 weeks, a week shorter than the traditional definition of a full-term pregnancy. This shift occurred between 1992 and 2002, according to a new analysis by the March of Dimes published this month in a special supplement of the journal "Seminars in Perinatology."

23 Mar 2006