Recently in General Allergy News Category

A new technique for preserving grapes for mass-market wine may prevent the drink causing allergies, a study says.

Spanish researchers found using ozone to keep grapes fresh for wine was 90% as effective as sulphur dioxide, which is currently used by producers.

Sulphur dioxide is often linked to allergies such as asthma and migraines, the journal Chemical and Industry said.

But experts said there were other properties in wine that could trigger allergic reactions.

Background: Maternal diet during pregnancy might be one of the factors that influences fetal immune responses associated with childhood allergy.

Objective: We analyzed the association between maternal diet during the last 4 wk of pregnancy and allergic sensitization and eczema in the offspring at 2 y of age.

Design: Data from 2641 children at 2 y of age were analyzed within a German prospective birth cohort study (LISA). Maternal diet during the last 4 wk of pregnancy was assessed with a semiquantitative food-frequency questionnaire, which was administered shortly after childbirth.

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 26 -- Freeway traffic pollution can retard lung development of children whose homes are not far from the side of the road, researchers here reported.

Children exposure to traffic pollution during their rapid pulmonary development, from ages 10 to 18, had eight-year lung growth that was significantly stunted, W. James Gauderman, Ph.D., of the University of Southern California here, and colleagues, reported online in The Lancet.

The lung growth was slowed in children who lived within 500 meters (about a third of a mile) of a freeway compared with children who lived 1,500 meters (about one mile) or more away, the investigators found.

In a surprise finding, scientists have discovered that histamine, the inflammatory compound released during allergic reactions that causes runny nose, watery eyes, and wheezing, can be produced in large amounts in the lung by neutrophils, the white blood cells that are the major component of pus.

Pus, a fluid found in infected tissue, is produced as a result of inflammation.
The study in mice is the first to show that lung neutrophils can produce histamine in significant quantities, according to principal investigator George Caughey, MD, chief of pulmonary/critical care medicine at the San Francisco VA Medical Center.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Mothers who have previously used oral contraceptive pills seem more likely to have children with nasal allergies, Finnish researchers report.

Dr. Leea Keski-Nisula, of Kuopio University, Finland, and colleagues note in the medical journal Allergy that there has been a suggestion of an association between oral contraceptive use and allergic diseases.

To investigate, the researchers studied 618 asthmatic children aged 5 or 6 years and compared them with 564 similar but unaffected children.

Asthmatx Inc., a medical device company that focuses on a catheter-based procedure for the treatment for asthma, said Wednesday its investigational treatment was named one of the Top Ten Medical Innovations for 2007 by the Cleveland Clinic.

Mountain View-based Asthmatx said the list recognizes breakthrough medical technologies that have the potential to have an impact on health care in 2007.

Asthmatx said its bronchial thermoplasty, a minimally-invasive procedure, is a non-drug treatment for asthma that is currently under clinical investigation at more than 30 research centers around the world.

Q. I have a daughter who just started kindergarten and one in preschool. My older daughter has bad allergies, and it seems like all the kids in both girls' schools have runny noses. I'd like some guidelines about allergies and how to recognize a sinus infection versus a cold. a mother and teacher in Charlotte

The cold-allergies question is complex, says a pediatrician and father in Concord. "This is something we struggle with as pediatricians every day," says Dr. Greg Guerriero.

Teachers reluctantly deal with the issue as well, wondering whether their snotty-nosed charges should be at home.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Under-the-tongue or "sublingual" immunotherapy -- what doctors call SLIT -- is cost-effective for treating adults with pollen-induced respiratory allergy, according to a report.

SLIT is not officially in use in the United States, although some allergists use it "with satisfactory results," Dr. Giovanni Passalacqua from University of Genoa, Italy told Reuters Health. "The problem is formal, due to the fact that SLIT has not the approval of the FDA. Clinical studies endorsed by the FDA are currently ongoing to get the approval."

"In Europe the situation is completely different, and SLIT is widely used in many countries (e.g., Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Hungary)," Passalacqua said.

GA²LEN welcomes the vote of the European Parliament on the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) on 30 November that acknowledges allergic diseases as major chronic diseases to be addressed in European research during the coming 7 years (2007 - 2013).

The European Parliament adopted the report of Prof. Jerzy Buzek that recognises “respiratory diseases including those induced by allergies” as health priorities to be addressed by translational research. This will allow respiratory allergic diseases (including asthma) to be covered by the research programme under the health theme.

Abstract

The pool chlorine hypothesis postulates that the rise in childhood asthma in the developed world could result at least partly from the increasing exposure of children to toxic gases and aerosols contaminating the air of indoor chlorinated pools. To further assess this hypothesis, we explored the relationships between childhood asthma, atopy, and cumulated pool attendance (CPA). We studied 341 schoolchildren 10-13 years of age who attended at a variable rate the same public pool in Brussels (trichloramine in air, 0.3-0.5 mg/m3). Examination of the children included a questionnaire, an exercise-induced bronchoconstriction (EIB) test, and the measurement of exhaled nitric oxide (eNO) and total and aeroallergen-specific serum IgE. CPA by children (range, 0-1,818 hr) emerged among the most consistent predictors of asthma (doctor diagnosed or screened with the EIB test) and of elevated eNO, ranking immediately after atopy and family history of asthma or hay fever. Although the risk of elevated eNO increased with CPA [odds ratio (OR) = 1.30 ; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.10-1.43] independently of total or specific serum IgE, the probability of developing asthma increased with CPA only in children with serum IgE > 100 kIU/L (OR for each 100-hr increase in CPA = 1.79; 95% CI, 1.07-2.72). All these effects were dose related and most strongly linked to pool attendance before 6-7 years of age. Use of indoor chlorinated pools especially by young children interacts with atopic status to promote the development of childhood asthma. These findings further support the hypothesis implicating pool chlorine in the rise of childhood asthma in industrialized countries.