25 Ocak 2017 Çarşamba
4 Ocak 2017 Çarşamba
A Breath of Fresh Air: 5 Natural Remedies for Asthma
It is estimated that 34 million people in America have asthma. Approximately $ 14.7 million is spent on treating asthma every year. That is why many people are turning to natural remedies. Asthma medications may also have side effects, which is another reason many people are opting to use natural remedies. If you or a loved one has asthma, you might want to look into the natural options below.
Vitamin C-Rich Foods
Red peppers, oranges, grapefruit and guava are some of the foods that will provide you with a great source of Vitamin C. This nutrient helps detoxify the body and reduce inflammation. There has also been evidence to suggest that Vitamin C can reduce wheezing.
Onions
Onions are another food that you should add to your diet. They have anti-inflammatory properties, which is great for people who have asthma. It does not matter whether you eat raw or cooked onions. You will be able to reap the same benefits.
Chiropractic Care
Chiropractic care is not just for people who have pain. Studies have shown when the back is not properly aligned, lung function can be impaired. That is why asthma patients will benefit from going to the chiropractor on a regular basis. Additionally, chiropractic care allows the body to naturally heal.
Manage Your Stress
Stress is bad for anyone, but it can be even more harmful if you have asthma. Studies have shown that stress can increase the intensity and frequency of asthma attacks. One study showed that 67 percent of asthma had mood disorders that were related to stress. Mood disorders also make it difficult for one to deal with stress. There are many ways that you can reduce your stress; for example, exercising, meditating and deep-breathing.
Steam Inhalation
Steam inhalation is a remedy that’s easy for just about anyone to try. Steam helps open up your airways and loosen up phlegm. You will be able to reap even more benefits when you put some natural remedies in the hot water. Juniper oil, peppermint oil and caraway seeds are examples of some of the things that you can put in the hot water. Inhale the steam as the water boils.
Asthma is a lifelong chronic condition that can be a major burden. Even though asthma can be effectively controlled with medication, you may want to consider using natural remedies. Home remedies will not only help you save money, but they usually have few or no side effects.
Dixie Somers is a freelance writer and blogger for business, home, and family niches. Dixie lives in Phoenix, Arizona, and is the proud mother of three beautiful girls and wife to a wonderful husband. Dixie recommends speaking with someone with an online respiratory therapy degree for more information.
A Breath of Fresh Air: 5 Natural Remedies for Asthma
Millions of UK asthma sufferers "not receiving basic levels of care"
Millions of asthma patients are not receiving basic levels of care to keep their condition in check, a charity has warned.
Two-thirds of sufferers are not being given fundamental care to manage their condition, Asthma UK said. This is about 3.6 million people across the UK.
Full provision of this basic care would “reduce the impact of asthma, reduce hospital admissions and improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of people”, according to a new report by the charity.
Basic care includes having an appropriate asthma review at least once a year – or more often for severe cases and children – being on the right medication and knowing how to use it, and having a written asthma action plan.
The annual asthma survey, based on responses from 4,650 patients from around the UK, found a variation in the proportion of people receiving basic care across the country, with some areas “lagging behind others”.
Patients in Northern Ireland appeared to get the best basic care, with 47.6% receiving all elements of recommended care.
The lowest proportion was in London, where just 27.5% of patients received this level of care.
The report’s authors said it was not just this basic care that was “failing people with asthma”. The report stated that seven out of 10 patients who required hospital care or out-of-hours treatment did not have a follow-up appointment.
The authors said: “Correct discharge arrangements after a hospital stay for asthma saves lives, and this is a particularly worrying finding.”
There are about 5.4 million people with asthma in the UK. In 2015, 1,468 people died from the condition – the highest number for more than a decade. The charity said two-thirds of asthma deaths were preventable with the right basic care.
“It is worrying that basic care is not being delivered on a consistent basis because every person with asthma should be receiving this care,” said the charity’s clinical lead, Dr Andy Whittamore.
Kay Boycott, chief executive of Asthma UK, said: “With the 2014 national review of asthma deaths reporting two out of three asthma deaths are preventable with good basic care, it is hugely disappointing that the latest Asthma UK care survey shows little has changed since that damning report.
“It is clear that expecting old ways to tackle long-standing problems won’t work. We must take a bold new approach and take advantage of new asthma digital health solutions to transform the way asthma care is delivered and support self-management.
“Digital asthma action plans, smart inhalers and automated GP alerts are just some of the ways asthma care could be brought up to date and help reduce the risk of potentially fatal asthma attacks.”
The proportion of patients in each region who received all elements of basic asthma care, according to Asthma UK
East Midlands: 33.5%
East of England: 30.4%
London: 27.5%
North-east: 38.5%
North-west: 34.5%
Northern Ireland: 47.6%
Scotland: 41.1%
South-east: 33.2%
South-west: 34.2%
Wales: 32.2%
West Midlands: 32.2%
Yorkshire and the Humber: 28.1%
Millions of UK asthma sufferers "not receiving basic levels of care"
20 Aralık 2016 Salı
12 Aralık 2016 Pazartesi
Study: Acetaminophen May Double Asthma Risk in Kids
Teenagers who take acetaminophen—the active ingredient in Tylenol and many other over-the-counter remedies—may be at increased risk of asthma and some allergic conditions, according to a new study.
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Istockphoto By Denise Mann Related links: Continue reading
The researchers can’t say that acetaminophen directly causes asthma and these other conditions, however. That will require long-term studies that compare children who take acetaminophen with a control group, says the lead author of the study, Richard Beasley, MD, a professor of medicine at the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand, in Wellington.
Overall trends in asthma prevalence also suggest a link between acetaminophen and asthma, Dr. Nelson says.
Study: Acetaminophen May Double Asthma Risk in Kids
9 Aralık 2016 Cuma
Pregnant? Some Foods May Raise Baby's Asthma, Allergy Risk
As if mothers-to-be don’t have enough to worry about, new research suggests that eating certain foods during pregnancy or while breast-feeding may raise the baby’s risk of allergies and asthma later in life.
trending now
(Getty Images) By Denise Mann Related links: Continue reading
SUNDAY, Feb. 28, 2010 (Health.com) — As if mothers-to-be don’t have enough to worry about, new research suggests that eating certain foods during pregnancy or while breast-feeding may raise the baby’s risk of allergies and asthma later in life.
The first study looked at 274 pregnant women in Australia who already had a child with food allergies. Researchers told the moms that they should avoid nuts, eggs, and milk during the third trimester of their pregnancies, while breast-feeding, and at least until their baby’s first birthday.
Andrew Liu, MD, an associate professor of pediatrics at National Jewish Health, in Denver, calls the findings “intriguing.”
Pregnant? Some Foods May Raise Baby"s Asthma, Allergy Risk
29 Kasım 2016 Salı
A third of children hospitalised with asthma "exposed to cigarette smoke"
One in three children who ends up in hospital with an asthma attack has been exposed to cigarette smoke, prompting renewed concern about parents smoking at home around their offspring.
A major review of how hospitals treat children with asthma found that 32% of those treated for breathing difficulties encountered “environmental tobacco smoke” just beforehand.
Given that both the number of people and also the number of mothers who smoke is declining, “the fact that one third of children admitted in this audit were recorded as being exposed to cigarette smoking is worrying”, according to the British Thoracic Society’s national paediatric asthma audit.
It examined the records of 5,443 children treated as inpatients for asthma in 153 hospitals during November 2015.
“This study highlights the importance of making homes smoke-free since that is where children are most likely to be exposed to tobacco smoke, which can trigger asthma attacks,” said Deborah Arnott, chief executive of the anti-tobacco group Action on Smoking and Health.
“Health professionals need to do more to inform parents of the health risks of second-hand smoke, particularly to their children, and also to support parents who smoke to quit.”
Dr Russell Viner, officer for health promotion at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said: “It is concerning that one third of children are exposed to environmental tobacco smoke. The effects of second-hand smoke on children are well known, yet it seems our children are still often feeling the brunt of it.”
Children’s doctors want the government to reverse its £200m-a-year cut to the public health budget in England in order to boost stop-smoking services, he added. “If adults and parents are properly supported to overcome this addiction, then this can have a real positive knock-on effect to asthma sufferers.”
A legal ban on adults smoking in cars containing under-18s came into force in England and Wales in October 2015. However, freedom of information requests in March showed that 39 out of 44 police forces who responded to the BBC’s request had issued none of the £50 fines or court summons and only six warnings to adults found smoking in a vehicle containing a child. Police officers say the law is almost unenforceable as they cannot issue a physical ticket for the offence.
The audit found that “medical care of children with acute wheeze/asthma continues to be highly efficient and effective”. Few children need to be ventilated or spend time in intensive care and most spend only a short time in hospital.
But too many children who present with asthma receive an X-ray or antibiotics or both and 44% still do not receive a written personal asthma plan when they are being discharged, making it more likely that they will have to be readmitted, the audit points out. In addition, 58% were not shown how to use their inhaler properly and 47% received explanatory leaflets about asthma and how to avoid a flare-up.
A third of children hospitalised with asthma "exposed to cigarette smoke"
26 Kasım 2016 Cumartesi
Thunderstorm asthma: "You"re talking an event equivalent to a terrorist attack"
A sudden drop in temperature in Melbourne on Monday evening from peaks of 35C brought with it severe thunderstorms and triggered a mass asthma event that left hospitals struggling to treat 8,500 patients.
There is a small group of researchers around the world working to understand the phenomena known as “thunderstorm asthma”, which although rare, can have devastating consequences. Climate change, they say, may be where part of the blame lies.
On Sunday 20 people remained in hospitals across Victoria, struggling with respiratory and related conditions, while four remained in critical condition. At least five people are known to have died after their asthma was triggered during the thunderstorm, the health department confirmed over the weekend.
A major, state-wide investigation into the response of emergency services to the event has been ordered.
Paramedics did the best they could to respond to an unprecedented 1,900 emergency calls in five hours on the evening of 21 November but were unable to reach everyone in a reasonable time. Ambulances made constant trips to emergency departments already overwhelmed as hundreds of patients streamed in under their own steam.
The acting general secretary of Ambulance Employees Australia, Danny Hill, said it would have been a traumatising night for paramedics.
“For anyone who worked that night, from staff on the ground to senior management, they regarded it as the busiest night they ever worked in their whole careers,” he said.
“Very few crews got fed. They worked 14 hours straight. Everyone worked together, worked hard, and stepped up. There was about 30 people who were so severely ill that they had to be taken straight into intensive care. So you’re talking an event equivalent to a bushfire where people are severely burned, or a terrorist attack where people are critically injured.
“That’s the level of chaos our crews dealt with on Monday night.”
Asthma patients can be some of the most difficult for paramedics to respond to. They deteriorate very quickly, and severe cases require more than the immediate treatment a paramedic can provide, including continuous days of intravenous drugs and ventilation. Many, Hill said, went into cardiac arrest.
Kathy Bowlen from St Vincent’s hospital said the emergency department there had considered opening a temporary emergency department in the foyer of the hospital to cope with the demand.
While not the first case of thunderstorm asthma in Melbourne, it was the most deadly and the severe. What researchers don’t know is why sometimes a combination of high pollen counts and thunderstorms lead to a mass asthma event, while other times, those two factors combined have little impact on people’s respiratory health at all. What other factors might be playing a part?
What is known is that grass pollen is usually too big to get into the lungs to cause asthma, and instead causes a reaction in the superficial respiratory systems of those with pollen sensitivity: a hay fever reaction such as a runny nose, sore throat and itchy eyes are more common.
But when a thunderstorm occurs, pollen which had settled during the day can be swept back into the air and the moisture in those winds combined with wind power causes the pollen to rupture into smaller pieces, between 0.5mm and 2.5mm in diameter. Those small fragments are then able to penetrate the superficial respiratory system and get into the lungs, triggering asthma and other serious respiratory responses.
Gennaro D’Amato is a professor of respiratory medicine in Italy and chairman of the World Allergy Organisation’s climate change, biodiversity and allergy committee. He is the world expert on thunderstorm asthma and one of the most published authors on the phenomena in the scientific literature.
He has been monitoring thunderstorm asthma events throughout the world and says they have also been seen in London in the UK, Naples in Italy, and Wagga Wagga in New South Wales.
A sudden and extreme asthma outbreak that occurred in London in June 1994 coincided with a heavy thunderstorm, D’Amato said. In the space of just 30 hours, 640 patients with asthma or other airway diseases attended London hospitals, nearly 10 times the usual number. For 283 patients, the storm triggered their first known attack of asthma. And for every patient that did seek help, many more suffered at home.
“Fortunately, even though it can induce severe asthma, outbreaks associated with thunderstorms are neither frequent nor responsible for a high number of disease exacerbations,” D’Amato told Guardian Australia.
“However, the mechanisms involved in the release of allergens from pollens during thunderstorm should be known so that patients can receive information about the risk of an asthma attack, including in those usually only affected by seasonal allergic rhinitis [hay fever].”
The frequency of thunderstorms had recently increased in some geographical areas, he said, particularly in temperate and subtropical climates. Research has shown that thunderstorms and their destructive winds are expected to become moresevere as the climate changes.
D’Amato has found a number of characteristics common to all of the asthma epidemics. Theiroccurrence is closely linked to thunderstorms, are limited to late spring and summer when there are high levels of airborne pollen grains, have an onset close to the arrival of the thunderstorm and to major rises in the concentration of pollen grains, and people with hay fever and asthma and who stay indoors with windows closed during the thunderstorm are unaffected.
Those not undergoing asthma treatment are at major risk, his research has also found. In the Melbourne epidemic on Monday, between 20 and 40% of those affected had never had asthma before, and so would not have been undergoing treatment.
Associate Prof Paul Beggs, an environmental health scientist with Macquarie University in Sydney, is best known for his research on climate change and its impact on allergens such as pollen.
Some research had found that the potency of pollen grains had been increasing, he said. Anthropological climate change through the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere could be responsible for this growing pollen potency, he said.
Between 20 and 40% of those affected had never had asthma before, and so would not have been undergoing treatment
“Plants use carbon dioxide in photosynthesis,” he said. “It’s like if you change your diet, there are changes in your body. So plants use carbon dioxide through photosynthesis, and if you change the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere then their growth conditions are changing.”
“A few smart scientists thought to put these highly allergenic plants into a glass house where we can control all the conditions, from the temperature to light, water and levels of carbon dioxide.”
What they found, he said, was increasing the amount of carbon dioxide led to a whole range of changes in the plants, including more pollen and more potent pollen.
“All of these thing are happening in the background: climate change, increasing pollen potency, and they all mean a thunderstorm asthma episode is more likely than it was 20 years ago.”
Beggs is a researcher with the AusPollen Partnership, a multi-centre cross-disciplinary team of investigators including eminent allergy physicians and scientists looking at pollen aerobiology and climatology. Their work is essential given Australia is the fourth worst country for allergic hay fever and asthma.
The principal investigator on that team, Associate Prof Janet Davies, said another factor researchers believed may trigger asthma is a sudden temperature change, which occurred in Melbourne on Monday as the temperature fell rapidly from 35C into the low 20s. But much more research and data was needed to understand the phenomena, she said.
“The AusPollen Partnership is encouraging people to tell us about their symptoms and triggers, and free app downloads allow people to do this daily if they want to,” she said.
“That will help us understand regional patterns and, by integrating that data with geo-spacial data, will help us understand who is at greater risk and the threshold for triggering a higher risk.”
The difficulty for researchers is that pollen monitoring, though extensive in Melbourne, did not go back far enough to help them develop a clear picture of all the factors triggering thunderstorm asthma. This would allow them to issue alerts when they could see a perfect storm of risk factors about to collide.
But Associate Professor Ed Newbigin from the school of biosciences at the University of Melbourne said thunderstorm asthma was going to be “a hard thing to get a handle on” because of the lack of data.
“The big question is why sometimes high pollen counts combined with thunderstorms sometimes trigger these asthma events and sometimes don’t,” he said.
“We need to understand what other factors work together if we want to reduce thunderstorm asthma. Because in Melbourne, high pollen counts and thunderstorms often coincide. But most of the time when they do, nothing happens.”
Thunderstorm asthma: "You"re talking an event equivalent to a terrorist attack"
25 Kasım 2016 Cuma
Thunderstorm asthma: what causes it and why is it so dangerous? – video explainer
A mass asthma event which has so far caused the deaths of four people, left dozens in hospital and affected hundreds more hit in Melbourne, Australia, this week. It was triggered by extreme winds and air moisture which broke pollen particles into small enough pieces to enter people’s lungs. Christine Jenkins, clinical professor at the George Institute, explains the phenomenon and why it is especially dangerous for people who do not usually experience asthma
Thunderstorm asthma: what causes it and why is it so dangerous? – video explainer
23 Kasım 2016 Çarşamba
Study- Synthetic Fragrance Linked to Cancer, Brain & Kidney Damage, Asthma, Headaches & More
What is Fragrance?
Fragrance also called a perfume is a key ingredient in perfumes and colognes. It is also called “the new second-hand smoke.” Like cigarettes, fragrance is harmful to the health of users and bystanders, its toxic effect lingering for hours after initial use. The late 70s and early 80s perfumes used to be made from natural ingredients like flowers and herbs. Today, they are approximately 95-100% synthetic (man-made).
Do you know your shampoo, perfumes, air fresheners, candles, and dryer sheets are killing you slowly? The term “fragrance” on a cosmetic ingredients list usually represents a complex mixture of dozens of chemicals. According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, there are over 5,000 chemical fragrances being used in some combination by today’s consumers. (1) (2)
Fragrances are Synthetic and Artificial
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) reports that more than 95 percent of the chemicals in synthetic fragrances are derived from petrochemicals. These chemicals include benzene derivatives, aldehydes, phthalates, and a few of other known toxins that are capable of causing cancer, birth defects, nervous-system disorders and allergies. A survey of asthmatics found that perfume and colognes triggered attacks in nearly three out of four individuals.
Environmental Working Group (EWG) researchers found more than 75 percent of products listing the ingredient “fragrance” contained phthalates (THAL-ates) which have been shown to disrupt hormone activity, reduce sperm counts, and cause reproductive malformation, and have been linked to liver and breast cancer, diabetes, and obesity. There is also evidence suggesting that exposure to perfume can exacerbate asthma, and perhaps even contribute to its development in children. (3) (4) (5)
Homemade Herbal Perfume Recipe
Ingredients:
Approximately 12-20 drops of Essential Oils like: Cedarwood, Vanilla, Vetiver, Ylang Ylang, Sandalwood, etc
1 tsp of vanilla extract (optional)
25-30 drops of middle tone oil like Rose, Lavender, Chamomile or Geranium
12-15 drops of top note oil like Bergamot, Wild Orange or Neroli
4 ounces of alcohol to preserve and meld scents
Directions:
Mix all oils together in an opaque bottle to get a scent you like.
Let this mixture stay in the bottle alone for a few days to let scents meld.
Add the alcohol and cap tightly.
Shake and put in a cool, dark place for at least a month (preferably).
This is optional but helps the alcohol scent fade and the scents of the oils intensify.
Additional Sources:
–http://wellnessmama.com/26194/diy-herbal-perfume-recipe/
–http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maria-rodale/five-mustknows-on-the-dan_b_4737654.html
Read:
Study- Synthetic Fragrance Linked to Cancer, Brain & Kidney Damage, Asthma, Headaches & More
12 Eylül 2016 Pazartesi
Altering gut microbes of babies could prevent asthma and allergies
Asthma and allergies in children could be prevented by altering the type of microbes inside their gut as babies, researchers have suggested.
The team found that a particular pattern of gut microbes in babies just a month old was linked to an increased risk of them developing asthma and allergic reactions as they grew up.
“Early-life intervention may be a strategy by which we can offset allergic asthma in perhaps a portion of the population,” said Susan Lynch, co-author of the research from the University of California, San Francisco, adding that such interventions could include supplementing young babies with a cocktail of bacteria and other microbes lacking in their gut.
According to Asthma UK, the UK has one of the highest rates of asthma symptoms in children in the world, with one in 11 currently receiving treatment for the condition. While the disease can be managed, there is currently no cure.
Writing in the journal Nature Medicine, Lynch and colleagues describe how they analysed the gut microbes of 130 babies aged around one month old by examining their stool samples. They then followed up on the health of the children at two and four years of age.
Microbes such as bacteria and fungi are passed from mothers to babies during birth, while breastfeeding, the surrounding environment and the use of antibiotics are also thought to influence the mix.
The researchers found that the babies fell broadly into one of three groups, based on the mix of microbes living in their gut.
One of the groups, composed of 11 babies, were three times more likely to have allergic reactions at two years and asthma at four years old compared to the other groups.
The stools of these babies, Lynch added, had low levels of bacteria including Faecalibacterium and Bifidobacterium and high levels of fungi such as Candida and Rhodotorula. That raises the possibility of manipulating the mix of gut microbes early in development to reduce the risk.
To unpick how the microbes could affect the likelihood of developing allergies and asthma, Lynch and colleagues exposed immune cells from healthy adults to sterilised stool samples from the lowest and highest-risk babies. The upshot was that samples from the high-risk babies triggered an immune response and suppressed cells involved in keeping allergic responses in check.
That, says Lynch, “[suggests] that the microbes in the gut and their products in these highest-risk children drives an allergic response from very early infancy”.
The researchers also delved into possible explanations for why some babies had the problematic set of gut microbes, finding that those children were more likely to be boys and to grow up in a household without a dog.
Benjamin Marsland, an expert on the impact of microbes on the immune system from the University hospital of Lausanne in Switzerland, described the new research as “important”.
“There is a growing awareness that events very early in life can shape how our immune system matures, and as a consequence, our susceptibility to, or protection against, allergies,” he said.
The new research, he adds, is a stepping stone towards new ways of tackling asthma and allergies. “If we can ensure that a baby is exposed to the right microbes early in life, we might be able to reduce the global burden of allergic diseases, such as asthma,” he said.
But William Cookson, professor of genomic medicine at Imperial College London, urged caution, noting the small number of children considered to have asthma or allergy in the study and that an increase in allergic reactions at two years of age was not found using conventional definitions.
“Asthma is a disease of the airways, it is not a disease of the bowel, and the airways have their own microbiota – fungi and bacteria – which are very, very plainly abnormal in asthmatics,” he added. “So the more logical thing to do, to me, is to look at the lungs, rather than to look at the bowels.”
Dr Erika Kennington, head of research at Asthma UK, said: “We know that gut bacteria can influence our health in many different ways, including determining our risk of developing asthma, but we don’t yet know exactly how this process works.
“This new research helps us better understand the link between gut bacteria and asthma in young children and, in the future, could potentially help us to identify youngsters at higher risk of developing asthma and develop treatments to help them manage it.”
Lynch adds that early life gut bacteria are not likely to be the whole story. “My personal view is that there are many ways to develop the disease,” she said.
Altering gut microbes of babies could prevent asthma and allergies
6 Eylül 2016 Salı
Vitamin D supplements could halve risk of serious asthma attacks
Vitamin D pills can halve the risk of serious asthma attacks according to a major review of research into the impact the supplements have on the condition.
People with mild or moderate asthma who took the vitamin with their normal medicine had fewer attacks that required hospital treatment than those who went without, scientists found.
The risk of severe attacks fell from 6% to 3% in patients who had a vitamin D boost for six months to a year. The supplements cut the frequency of attacks too, with cases needing steroid treatment falling from one per person every two or so years, to one every four years.
Half of all asthma patients will at some point have an attack that needs treating with oral steroids such as prednisolone, while a quarter will end up in hospital emergency departments. One in eight will have such serious attacks that they are admitted to hospital for further care.
“There were some pretty striking positive findings,” said Adrian Martineau, a professor of respiratory infection who led the review at Queen Mary, University of London. “Asthma attacks cause 185 hospital admissions and three deaths each day in the UK, so this is a major problem for society.”
More than five million people in the UK, and 334 million globally, are affected by asthma which causes wheezing, coughing, tightness in the chest, and shortness of breath.
The review for the Cochrane library drew on results from seven published trials on 435 children, and a further two trials on 658 adults. Most of the patients had mild to moderate asthma, meaning they had symptoms at least two days a week, but their daily routine was not seriously affected. Nearly all kept taking their normal asthma medicine on top of the vitamin D supplements.
While the trials found that a daily dose of 25 to 50 micrograms reduced the risk of serious attacks, the evidence was largely from adults. “We need more trials specifically focusing on children and also specifically focusing on adults with severe asthma to see if those patient groups could benefit,” Martineau said.
In July, Public Health England recommended that everybody in Britain over the age of one consider taking a 10 microgram daily supplement of vitamin D, particularly over the autumn and winter when sunlight levels are low. The body makes vitamin D when sunlight falls on the skin, but people who cover up outside, and those who are housebound can struggle to make enough.
It is not clear how vitamin D helps asthma patients, but supplements may work by boosting the immune system’s defences against respiratory infections, such as the common cold, which are the main triggers for serious asthma attacks. The vitamin also seems to keep inflammation under control.
“You can think of vitamin D almost as a designer drug because it has these two actions, the first being to boost immunity to infections and the second to dampen down inflammation,” said Martineau.
One question scientists hope to answer in the next few months is whether supplements only benefit asthma patients with low levels of vitamin D. “At the moment we just don’t have the evidence to say who are those who are going to benefit and how low their vitamin D has to be in order to benefit,” Martineau said. “We don’t want people to stop taking their asthma medication and start taking vitamin D instead,” he added.
The findings come as scientists report impressive trial results for a drug that cuts asthma attacks in patients with the most severe form of the disease. Two trials in more than 2,500 people showed that a year’s course of benralizumab injections reduced asthma attacks by a third to a half, according to The Lancet.
Samantha Walker at Asthma UK said the new drug offered “genuine hope” for people in the UK who had a type of asthma that does not respond to standard treatments. “These people struggle to breathe every day, restricting their ability to carry out everyday activities such as going to work or school and severely affecting their quality of life,” she said.
Vitamin D supplements could halve risk of serious asthma attacks
29 Temmuz 2016 Cuma
How to Make Okra Water For Diabetes, Asthma, Cleanse Your Body and More
Okra is one of the most common vegetables while with great medicinal properties. It’s popular used in many recipes because of its nutritional value. This vegetable has a long list of benefits and can be consumed in many ways.
Here is an amazing recipe that will boost your health in many ways. It’s simple to make and all you need are 4 fresh okras and 3 cups of water. For making the drink, remove the ends of okras and slice them in half. Soak them in the water for a whole night. Drink the okra water the next morning with an empty stomach.
Drink This Okra Water to Boost Your Health
1. Drink it regularly and you will get a good amount of dietary fiber, vitamins as well as minerals for your body, all of which are highly recommended for controlling cholesterol and normalizing blood sugar levels, thus fighting diabetes.
2. As almost half of kidney diseases are associated with diabetes, okra water also helps with kidney diseases. And there are studies found that consume okra regularly help reduce the risk of kidney diseases.
3. The dietary fiber promotes colon health. 1 cup (100g)of okra contains 2.5 grams of fiber, which is 10% of the recommended daily value.
4. Okra water helps with Asthma as okra contains high levels of vitamin C, which has been proven to help with Asthma as well as other respiratory issues.
5. A cup of okra contains more than 27% recommended daily needs of vitamin C, making it as a good agent to promote healthy skin. Regular consumption of okra water will make your skin look younger and vibrant.
6. Okra is a good source of folate, which boosts bone health and prevents osteoporosis. The vitamin K in it is also essential to strengthen bones.
7. Also due to the rich fiber content in okra, drink okra water helps relieve constipation and ensure easy bowel movements.
8. Okra water is super low in calories, and along with the fiber, keeps you feel full for longer to prevents obesity and promotes weight loss.
9. Okra is good for your vision too. It’s rich in lutein, xanthin and beta-carotenes, which are important to promote a healthy vision.
10. Okra also prevents anemia as the folate, vitamin K and iron in it aid in blood coagulation, red blood cells production, thus fighting against anemia.
Sources: healthyfoodhouse.com, humour-blague.net/, curejoy.com
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How to Make Okra Water For Diabetes, Asthma, Cleanse Your Body and More
1 Temmuz 2014 Salı
Obesity and excess weight in childhood may increase asthma risk, study finds
Excess weight and obesity in children may be fuelling the asthma epidemic facing many countries, a joint study from Australian and UK researchers has found, prompting peak asthma groups to re-emphasise the importance of a healthy lifestyle in childhood.
The risk of developing the condition, which causes chronic inflammation of the airways, increases by 55% for every extra unit of body mass index (BMI), University of Bristol and University of Queensland researchers found.
The study looked at almost 5,000 children with asthma by the age of seven and a half who were enrolled in a long-term study of parents and children in the UK.
Researchers gave children a score based on 32 independent body mass-related DNA sequence variations, and associations with body mass, fat mass, lean mass, and asthma were then estimated.
Lead author of the study and allergy expert Dr Raquel Granell said many studies had explored the influence of environmental factors such as pollen and fumes on asthma in childhood.
But while the link between BMI and asthma has long been suspected, until now no causal link had been shown, she said.
“Higher BMI in mid-childhood could help explain some of the increase in asthma risk toward the end of the 20th century,” she said, “although the continued rise in obesity but with a slowing in the rise in asthma prevalence in some countries implies that other non-BMI-related factors are also likely to be important.”
More research was needed to confirm a causal link between BMI and asthma, she said.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports that Australia, the UK, New Zealand and Ireland have among the highest prevalence of asthma in children. More than two million Australians have the condition.
While the prevalence of asthma has fallen in children and young adults in Australia, it is high by international standards.
Respiratory physician and the chair of Asthma Australia’s medical and scientific committee, Dr Simon Bowler, said the new research had helped to define the relationship between asthma and childhood obesity.
“Whilst it has been widely acknowledged that levels of stored body fat impact on health and wellness of people and those with asthma in particular, this new research highlights obesity as a marker of asthma in children,” he said.
“A cure for asthma is a long way off but people with asthma can manage the disease with medications and preventative health approaches including manage their or their children’s weight.”
Up to one out of every nine children have asthma in Australia, he said, making managing a child’s weight in early childhood years important for parents.
Dr Samantha Walker, the director of research and policy at Asthma UK, said the research, published in PLOS Medicine, a peer-reviewed medical journal, was in line with other studies linking obesity with asthma. Asthma was a complex condition particularly in children, she said.
“Keeping your BMI within normal limits brings all sorts of health benefits and may help reduce the risk of children developing asthma.”
Obesity and excess weight in childhood may increase asthma risk, study finds
12 Haziran 2014 Perşembe
Exposing infants to dust mites "may minimize asthma risk"
“As a consequence, we believe there is a powerful likelihood this could now lead to the prevention of asthma, eczema and other allergic conditions.”
As many as 1 in four men and women in the Uk are affected by an allergic ailment and, as allergic reactions commence early in life, youngsters bear the brunt of the conditions.
In the Uk, dust mites are the most prevalent allergy-triggering substance, inducing reactions in a high proportion of youngsters with asthma.
Prof Arshad, who is chairman of allergy and clinical immunology at the University of Southampton, stated prior scientific studies carried out by his group showed that about a quarter of all higher-risk kids have proof of an allergy at 18 months and they had been at substantial chance of building asthma later on in lifestyle.
The findings, presented on Wednesday at the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology Congress in Copenhagen, showed final results in the placebo group have been as expected- 25.5 per cent created allergy to dust mites or other allergens – but the dust mite extract intervention group saw that occur in only 9.4 per cent.
Professor Graham Roberts, a advisor in paediatric allergy and respiratory medication, additional: “Reduction in allergies at an early age need to lead to a reduction in the development of asthma later on in childhood.
“We nevertheless want to show that asthma can be prevented but, obtaining lowered reactivity to this allergen, there is a higher likelihood we won’t see asthma develop in these young children.”
The kids in the review will now be followed and checked at the ages of 3 and 5 to examine the prolonged-term results of the remedy.
Exposing infants to dust mites "may minimize asthma risk"
19 Mayıs 2014 Pazartesi
Doctor"s Diary: asthma and preventable death
The Royal College’s report neither cites Prof Turner-Warwick’s paper nor discusses these two unstable kinds of asthma, which are often resistant to treatment and thus a major contributory element to the concern it addresses. This surprising omission would, one particular may think, invalidate its sensationalist conclusion that conscientious medical doctors are to blame for these deaths.
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Prolonged reside the ‘queen of poisons’
The limited efficacy of, and daytime sedation soon after taking, medicines for the treatment of neuropathic pain, lately talked about in this column, has prompted a reader to report his encounter with the homeopathic treatment aconite, the “Queen of poisons”, which in big doses “causes nearly instantaneous death” – but is a lot favoured by practitioners as a remedy for sciatica, trigeminal neuralgia and related complaints.
“I have in no way actually believed in homeopathic treatments,” he writes, but he was impressed by aconite’s effectiveness when taken as two tablets every single two hours, in suppressing the “deep, electric-shock-kind pain in my feet”. His signs and symptoms gradually worsened (“at evening, I felt as if a sparkler was exploding beneath my toes”), warranting therapy with the anti-epileptic drug carbamazepine, but the aconite he still finds assists to control exacerbations: “This is no placebo effect.”
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Mystery blurring
The girl whose near-sight, initially impaired 1st issue in the morning (so she is unable to go through her copy of The Every day Telegraph), improves later in the day, has prompted a couple of achievable explanations. First, this can be a side-impact of the beta-blocker eye drops timolol, prescribed for decreasing the raised intra-ocular pressure of glaucoma.
Subsequent – and importantly, since it is not broadly recognised – this transient visual blurring is a characteristic signal of Fuchs’ Corneal Endothelial Dystrophy (FCED), named after the Austrian ophthalmologist who first described it. The blurring is due to swelling of the cornea with fluid while asleep, which slowly evaporates during the day – a method that can be facilitated by directing the warm air of a hairdryer, held at arm’s length, at the encounter.
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A quesion of timing
Lastly, a more suggestion on politely but firmly rebuffing those unsolicited dementia-screening interrogations. Just lately, when going to his nearby practice, 1 of our much more senior and distinguished columnists was requested to “answer a handful of questions” – starting up with “the date of the present year”.
“That depends on what calendar yr you are employing,” he responded. “By the Islamic calendar, it is 1434”.
E-mail health-related queries confidentially to Dr James LeFanu at drjames@telegraph.co.uk. Solutions will be published on the Telegraph web site each and every Friday, at telegraph.co.uk/overall health
Doctor"s Diary: asthma and preventable death
5 Mayıs 2014 Pazartesi
Men and women dying needlessly from asthma, says Royal School of Doctors
The report identified preventable factors in far more than 70% of circumstances of asthma sufferers. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian
Young children and grownups are dying needlessly from asthma attacks, in accordance to a report by authorities published on Tuesday, which found that in a quarter of fatal circumstances individuals had received less than satisfactory care.
Complacency about the disease – which kills about 1,200 men and women a yr – has to end, says the report by the Royal University of Doctors.
In its confidential inquiry into a sample of 195 deaths for which comprehensive records have been available, the university located that a quarter had acquired much less than satisfactory care and there was room for improvement in 83% of the situations.
Complacency, stated Dr Mark Levy, a GP and a single of the authors of the report, was a honest word to use.
“We have identified about the identifiable or preventable factors relating to asthma deaths because 1966,” he said. “The surprising and remarkably unhappy issue about this report is that we nonetheless find preventable elements in more than 70% of instances, some of which are fairly critical.
“For instance, 45% of these who died did not phone or acquire help, which indicates that either these patients weren’t as well worried about their asthma or they’d in no way been told how to recognise the danger indications.”
Levy stated there have been failures by medical doctors, carers and the patients themselves, with clear signs that the asthma of some individuals was not below appropriate control.
The patients who died tended to have relieved the symptoms of an asthma assault by above-using reliever inhalers, which open the airways and help them breathe but do not deal with the underlying problems.
“They do not address the inflammation,” mentioned Levy. “It is like painting a rusty pipe.” In contrast, there was below-use of preventive inhalers.
Medical professionals failed to stick to up folks who had been clearly at danger. One in 10 of individuals who died had been discharged from hospital less than a month earlier after treatment method for asthma, and 21% had attended accident and emergency departments at least when in the preceding 12 months.
Much more than half who died were currently being treated for mild or reasonable asthma – medical doctors and individuals had not realised the seriousness of their problem.
But sufferers had not constantly assisted themselves – 19% had been smokers even though other people, which includes young children, lived with people who smoked at home. Some patients had not collected their prescriptions for preventive therapies or did not go for standard asthma checkups.
“It really is time to end our complacency about asthma, which can, and does, destroy,” stated Dr Kevin Stewart, clinical director of the clinical effectiveness and evaluation Uunit at the school.
“There are important messages in this report for clinicians, for patients and their families and for policymakers. We haven’t paid enough consideration to the significance of very good regimen asthma care by clinicians with the proper coaching and encounter and the part that individuals themselves play in this.
“Also usually we have also been slow to detect indicators of poor asthma management and slow to act when these have been existing, with tragic consequences for some families. We can and we need to do far better.”
The Nationwide Review of Asthma Deaths is the greatest review ever done on the topic. It recommends that each hospital and GP practice should have a named medical professional responsible for asthma providers, who need to be a champion for improvement in care.
Much better monitoring of patients is required, the report says, to make sure that fast action is taken when a patient’s asthma ceases to be below control and physicians, nurses, individuals and carers need better education to recognise the dangers and know what to do throughout an assault.
Each patient need to have a private asthma action plan to support them recognise when the disease is worsening and seek out aid.
“This report demonstrates how care has deteriorated considering that the last nationwide evaluation of asthma deaths in 2005,” explained Professor Chris Griffiths from Queen Mary University of London, a member of the report steering group.
“These worrying statistics can and must be turned close to in the subsequent decade. Individuals of us who operate in general practice have to employ the recommendation to have a named clinician responsible for asthma in every practice.
“Regardless of facing enormous issues as we operate to meet current NHS organisational modify, we need to prioritise asthma care in buy to lessen deaths in the United kingdom.”
Men and women dying needlessly from asthma, says Royal School of Doctors
Hundreds of asthma deaths could be prevented
It found failings in 83 per cent of cases with “major avoidable factors” in 66 per cent of them. 9 out of ten of the deaths of children could possibly have been prevented, the review concluded.
Too several GPs were prescribing individuals with the wrong medicine in an try to keep down costs, giving sufferers only the blue “reliever” inhalers but not the brown “preventive” inhalers, which have low doses of steroids and are prescribed to end attacks.
Care of these with asthma was regularly delegated to practice nurses without education in it, the overview discovered.
The report’s authors explained complacency about the issue, which affects 5 million people in the Uk, meant as well numerous clinical workers had been not conscious of its dangers, and failed to act on clear indicators that the condition was getting to be worse.
Charities said the scale of blunders was a “frankly horrifying” indictment of existing practice, with clear signs that individuals had been deteriorating repeatedly missed by GPs and hospitals.
Half of individuals who died from asthma had previously been admitted to hospital for their issue, and 1 third had been to accident and emergency departments due to the fact of attacks in the earlier yr, the report found.
But most were not under the care of a expert, and virtually half of circumstances had not had their care reviewed by their GP in the yr prior to they died.
Authorities stated medical professionals had failed to act on clear indications that the problem was out of manage, with 40 per cent of people who died getting prescribed large numbers of reliever inhalers, which are only supposed to be employed two or 3 times a week. Meanwhile, patients had been not prescribed adequate of the medication utilised to avoid asthma.
Charities said the litany of mistakes and basic failings behind the avoidable deaths could not be justified.
Kay Boycott, chief executive of Asthma United kingdom, said: “This confidential inquiry has identified prescribing errors of a frankly horrifying scale and is a damning indictment of recent routine practice.
“In several of these instances the warning indications were ignored previous attacks are a clear threat element for potential attacks but more than two thirds of the folks admitted to hospital in the month prior to they died didn’t get properly checked up afterwards.”
The evaluation found that numerous of the failings in care have been worse for young children and younger folks.
Ms Boycott mentioned: “Parents of young children with asthma will be especially horrified that the confidential inquiry showed that kids fared worse than grownups in a number of elements of care, and fell effectively under expected requirements in almost half of little one deaths.”
The report’s authors explained too often patients have been observed by practice nurses who had not been correctly trained, whilst GPs had been below pressure to prescribe the cheapest medication, rather than the most effective.
Dr Mark Levy, the report’s lead author, stated several of the avoidable deaths could have been prevented if GPs had monitored patients’ properly, or not experimented with to reduce expenses
“The main difficulty is that as well a lot of reliever inhalers are getting prescribed without having the clinicians — medical professionals and pharmacists — recognising that these individuals in fact have poorly-managed asthma and want to be prescribed preventive medication,” he mentioned. “Another concern is that there is a lot of stress on prescribing costs — so medical doctors are striving to prescribe economically and not necessarily with clinical efficacy.”
Authorities stated that, when asthma is appropriately controlled through preventive medicine, patients should not need to have to use reliever inhalers far more than three times a week.
Dr Levy mentioned: “If men and women are using it far more frequently and they are not acquiring relief that lasts for 4 hrs they need to mobile phone up their GP and say their asthma is out of control and they need to be seen urgently.”
The review said patients prescribed much more than 12 reliever inhalers a yr should have their care reviewed. It located some were becoming prescribed far more than 50 reliever inhalers a yr. It also said individuals who attend A&E units or are taken to hospital simply because of asthma need to have an urgent care review inside of 48 hrs.
Half of individuals who died have been becoming handled for mild or moderate asthma, usually due to the fact personnel did not realise how serious their situation was.
Dr Peter Carter, basic secretary of the Royal School of Nursing, explained: “The tragic waste of life outlined in this report is surprising.” He additional that all individuals must have access to large-good quality care, with much more use of expert nurses.
Hundreds of asthma deaths could be prevented
2 Nisan 2014 Çarşamba
Asthma sufferer experiencing "nightmare"
Mr Connor described how, throughout periods of poor air quality, he is a “prisoner in his personal house”, unable to go out and socialise.
Millions of individuals with health troubles and the elderly are becoming warned not to overdo it as the Uk continues to experience large ranges of pollution.
Individuals with lung and heart problems should stay away from strenuous activity outside even though individuals suffering signs and symptoms of pollution – which includes sore eyes, coughs and sore throats – ought to minimize down the sum they do outside, overall health authorities explained.
Asthmatics may need to have to use their blue reliever inhalers more frequently as they could be prone to attacks nowadays and in excess of the up coming number of days. Around two-thirds of the 3.six million men and women with asthma find that air pollution makes their condition worse.
The suggestions, from Public Wellness England (PHE), Asthma Uk and the Division for Environment, Meals and Rural Affairs (Defra), comes right after a warning that components of England are experiencing the highest level of air pollution recorded by Defra.
Asthma sufferer experiencing "nightmare"
19 Mart 2014 Çarşamba
Paramedic admits he gave up on CPR as well early on girl who died right after asthma attack
Around thirty minutes later, Bella collapsed and her mom right away referred to as 999, and paramedics attended the handle eight minutes right after the get in touch with.
Mr McKenna was initial on the scene and carried out CPR for roughly ten minutes just before concluding that practically nothing else could be accomplished to conserve the youngster.
But the inquest heard that it was protocol for paramedics treating a kid to carry on with existence support until finally the level when the youngster is brought to hospital.
Giving proof in court yesterday (Weds), Mr McKenna stated that when he arrived at three.13am Bella was “pale, with blue lips and unresponsive” but he started to execute fundamental life help and asked a police officer to do chest compressions on Bella.
He mentioned: “There was practically nothing a lot more we could do. I carried on with CPR but quickly knew there was not going to be a response.
“Simply because of her age, I now know it is protocol that she ought to have been transferred to hospital but I was beneath the impression that because of her age she would be classed as an grownup – she wasn’t a little one.”
He added: “Bella must have been transferred to hospital but I do not believe it would have made considerably difference since of the tests I carried out.”
But the court heard that Mr McKenna had received a wonderful deal of coaching and ought to have known which process to adhere to.
Two superior technicians, who arrived minutes soon after Mr McKenna, described their “shock” and “shock” that Mr McKenna had given up on CPR so quickly.
Stephen Harrison, who arrived at Bella’s home minutes right after Mr McKenna, stated: “I felt some thing was amiss but there was practically nothing I could do about it.”
Asked if he had been told that CPR had been performed for close to 10 minutes Mr Harrison said: “I would have stated ‘let me carry on with CPR’.”
Colleague Dawn Vacation stated: “I was really shocked, it wasn’t what we had been expecting to see when we arrived.
“We full anticipated CPR to be in method when we arrived. I left the ambulance operating on the street and I total expected there would be a youngster there to get to hospital.”
Paramedic admits he gave up on CPR as well early on girl who died right after asthma attack