Allergy News

Over 3 million local people are now infected with COPD, which is mainly caused by smoking and environmental pollution, and the figure is increasing, local newspaper Youth on Thursday quoted Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Xuyen as saying.

To date, Vietnam has spent some nine trillion Vietnamese dong (over 556 million U.S. dollars) on treatment for the sufferers.

RAPID CITY — If you or your family members seem to come down with colds every year at Christmas time, you might want to think about replacing that fresh-cut tree with an artificial one, according to a local allergy doctor.

Allergy sufferers cringe during one of the most celebrated traditions of the winter holiday season - trimming the Christmas tree.

Allergists say itchy noses, scratchy eyes and sneezing during the holidays can have more to do with what is on a holiday tree than the tree itself.

While festive fir trees have thick, waxy pollen, studies have never shown them to cause significant allergic reactions. The real culprits behind holiday sniffles are Christmas tree dust and mold, and the chemicals sometimes sprayed on fresh trees to control pests or reduce needle shedding, says Dan Atkins, a pediatric allergist at National Jewish Medical and Research Center.

Washington University said Tuesday that it plans to use a $7.7 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to establish a new center for asthma research at the university's medical school.

The project was funded Aug. 15, 2006, according to Washington University spokeswoman Gwen Ericson, who said Dr. Michael Holtzman will lead the new center. The center will investigate the causes of asthma to develop new treatments for the disease. It will conduct research specifically focused on how the body's immune system contributes to asthma.

"Normally, immunity is under tight control," said Holtzman, who directs the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, in a statement. "But if the immune response goes too far, it can cause inflammatory diseases like asthma."

The Tokyo metropolitan government proposed to the Tokyo High Court on Tuesday that it will create a new system to help all residents suffering from asthma as a reconciliation plan with 96 plaintiffs who filed a damages suit against the central and Tokyo governments, the former public expressway corporation and others asking for compensation of about 2 billion yen.

Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara visited the high court on Tuesday afternoon to explain the reconciliation plan. The high court will show the plan to other defendants, including the central government, and the plaintiffs, and urge them to reach an out-of-court settlement.

LONDON (Reuters) - A new clinical tool to help doctors identify asthma patients most likely to need hospital treatment could improve the care of patients and reduce costs, researchers said on Tuesday.

The TENOR Risk Score determines the most difficult-to-treat cases by assessing factors such as the patient's age, weight, smoking status, medical history, medications and breathing and exercise tests.

In a three year study published in the European Respiratory Journal, patients with the highest score were 10 times more likely to need emergency treatment or be admitted to hospital than other asthma sufferers.

"The risk score derived is a clinically useful tool for assessing the likelihood of asthma-related hospitalization or emergency department visits," said Mary Miller of Genentech Inc who is a co-author of the study.

On Saturday, October 7, 2006, the AAP Section on Allergy and Immunology sponsored a session reviewing recent publications in the fields of asthma, eczema, and urticaria.

Asthma Diagnosis and Management

The first speaker was Dr. Paul Williams, Northwest Asthma and Allergy Center in Seattle, Washington, who was Chairman of the Section on Allergy and Immunology at AAP. He highlighted recent articles on the prevention of and care for patients with asthma. He reviewed studies covering the epidemiology of asthma, identification of severity and proper severity classification, and variation in symptom severity.^[1]

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The use of beta-agonist inhalers, which include drugs such as Proventil (albuterol), for asthma appears to promote the accumulation of immune cells called type 2 T cells, according to a report in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. The results reinforce the importance of including anti-inflammatory steroids, note the authors.

"Our findings that suggest beta-agonists promote preferential type 2 T-cell accumulation are consistent with clinical findings that continuous beta-agonist therapy leads to deterioration of control in some asthmatics," Dr. Raymond B. Penn from Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina told Reuters Health. "Why this deterioration occurs is not clear, but the fact that deterioration is less likely to occur when...steroids are used in conjunction suggests a failure to control inflammation."

JAPAN - More than 300 cases of allergic reaction to food served in school lunches occur annually, according to the first nationwide survey conducted by Sagamihara National Hospital and the School Dietician Conference of Japan.

Though the survey found no fatal cases, 4.7 percent of students who suffered were hospitalized, with 59 percent of primary and middle school students who had allergic reactions treated in hospitals.

The results illustrate the importance of measures to prevent allergic reactions to food in school lunches, the national hospital organization in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, and the Tokyo-based conference said.

The dietitian conference also decided to make a pamphlet about points to remember when providing school lunch to students with food allergies in the next fiscal year.

DROUGHT, wind-blown dust and bushfire smoke have emerged as the latest problems for Melbourne's air quality.

Twenty years ago, photochemical smog cooked up from car emissions was the enemy. Now, with tighter emission controls and cleaner fuels, there is a new threat to fresh air.

"In terms of extreme pollution events, in the last few years it's been due to drought-related effects such as wind-blown dust and bushfire smoke," Environment Protection Authority Victoria regional services executive director Bruce Dawson said. "Everyone is on high alert as to this year being a potentially serious bushfire season — we'll make sure people understand there are possible air quality and environmental impacts associated with that."

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is warning people with allergies to peanut or almond proteins not to consume certain Café Tasse Noir Praliné chocolate bars.

The agency warns some of the chocolate bars may contain peanut and almond proteins that are not declared on the label.

The importer is voluntarily recalling the affected product from stores, the agency said Friday.

There have been no reported illnesses associated with the consumption of the product, it added.

The work of researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center may shed new light on why some inhalers can worsen asthma.

Raymond Penn and Matt Loza, scientists in Wake Forest's School of Medicine, led a research team studying the effect of a class of drugs called beta agonists - often found in inhalers - on cells collected from healthy people.

They found that the drug increases a type of white-blood cell involved in immune-system defense. These Type 2 T-cells are thought to contribute to such health problems as asthma and even lupus. They're seeing similar results in preliminary research of cells collected from asthmatics.

ISLAMABAD - Children with asthma face quadruple the risk of an attack following stressful events in their lives, according to a study published on Wednesday in the journal Thorax.

Researchers from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, studied 60 children between the ages of 6 and 13, who had suffered from asthma for at least three years.

The children were asked to keep daily records over 18 months of acute attacks and their breath strength. Researchers regularly interviewed the children and their parents about stressful life events.

After the information was analyzed, the children were found to be four times as likely to experience a sudden worsening of symptoms with two days of a traumatic experience.

2. Avoid serving nuts and using nut oils—sesame, peanut, etc.—while cooking because for children with severe nut allergies, oil traces left on countertops can set off a reaction, even without eating the food in question.

3. Know your ingredients. Be sure that you and whoever is serving food know the ingredients—all of them—of what's being served. They're not always obvious - milk can be hiding in veggie dogs and soy is contained in many prepared foods. if you're serving catered foods, be especially vigilant about ingredients.

A jury in U.S. District Court in Springfield ordered Pittsfield-based Berkshire Life and its parent company, Guardian Life Insurance Co. of American, to pay $191,358 to Carolyn Mirek, of South Windsor, Conn.

Mirek filed the suit after Berkshire Life denied her disability claim. According to Mirek's attorney, Joanne D'Alcomo of the Boston firm Jager Smith, Mirek had worked for more than 18 years as a dental hygienist but stopped on the advice of her allergist.

DURHAM, N.C., Nov. 22 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say a pilot study suggests children allergic to eggs can overcome the allergy by gradually eating increased quantities of eggs.

Researchers at the Duke University Medical Center and theUniversity of Arkansas for Medical Sciences said study participants who took a daily dose of egg product during a the two-year period were able to increase their bodies' resistance to the point where most could eat two scrambled eggs without a reaction.

"Egg allergies cause a significant decrease in quality of life for many people, so this study is exciting in that it brings us a step closer to being able to offer a meaningful therapy for these people," said Dr. A. Wesley Burks, chief of Duke's division of allergy and immunology and a senior member of the research team.

ISLAMABAD - The results of a study published in the November issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry suggest there is an association between asthma and a range of mental disorders.

Dr. Renee D. Goodwin, of Columbia University, New York, and colleagues studied a sample of 13,222 adults in Germany. Current and lifetime asthma cases were identified based on physician diagnosis, and the Composite International Diagnostic Interview was used to assess current and lifetime mental disorders.

The researchers found that 2.7 percent of the subjects currently had asthma and 5.74 percent had a history of asthma.

PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 20 -- Asthma mortality rates are declining worldwide, largely due to increased use of inhaled corticosteroids to better manage the disease, according to a report from an international group of asthma researchers.

In Argentina, for example, a recent analysis found a negative correlation between annual deaths from asthma and sales of inhaled corticosteroids during the 1990s, said Hugo Neffen, M.D., president of the Argentine Association of Allergy and Clinical Immunology in Cordoba, Argentina, at a symposium held in conjunction with the meeting of the American College of Asthma, Allergy & Immunology here.

• What is cows' milk protein allergy? A reaction to one or more milk proteins.

• What are the symptoms? Rash, wheezing, vomiting, diarrhoea, constipation and distress. However, these symptoms have many causes.

• What is the most common cause of food allergy