Monday, November 23rd, 2009
More than five million individuals in the UK receive regular treatment for chronic asthma. Many are unsure about when or how to use inhalers, which reduces the effectiveness of their medication and can be a health risk.
A leading pharmacy group has developed a service, designed to help patients use long-term prescription drugs correctly. They found patients either breathe in too fast or not strongly enough and many individuals don’t seem to be able correctly alter their inhaler technique. These patients are then advised to speak to their GP about finding an alternative asthma medication delivery system. A study at Belfast City Hospital revealed 35 per cent of asthmatic patients used half or less of their prescribed medication, and another 21 per cent used treatment more than prescribed.
Asthma control is reliant on adequate use of low dose inhaled steroids as preventer medication particularly during the winter months when viral infections are likely to exacerbate asthma attacks.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/diets/article-1229842/Millions-asthma-sufferers-misuse-medication.html
Tags: asthma control, Asthma Medication, asthma preventer, chronic asthma, steroid inhaler
Posted in Airway Allergy | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
A scientific study due to be published in the American medical journal Pediatics (December 2009) has found a massive 18% increase in reported food allergies amongst US children (under 18 yrs of age). This increased reporting of food allergies took place over the last decade between 1997 and 2007. While between 1993 and 2006 ambulatory visits to the doctor for food allergies have tripled. In 2007 alone, 3.9% of US children reported food allergic conditions. The most severely affected were ethnic minorities such as Hispanics. In 2005 to 2006, an estimated 9% of US children had detectable peanut IgE in their blood on allergy testing while over the same period hospitalisations with a diagnosis of food allergy also tripled. It is uncertain whether this trend is due to a true increase in food allergic diseases or represents increasing allergy testing and physician and parental food allergy awareness.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/peds.2009-1210v1
Tags: allergy in children, Allergy Testing, food allergies, Food Allergy, IgE, peanut allergy
Posted in Allergy Testing, Food Allergy | No Comments »
Thursday, November 12th, 2009
A recent study on children attending day care or nurseries by de Jongste in the American Thoracic Society journal cast some doubt on the so-called Hygiene Hypothesis for allergy development. The Hygiene Hypothesis notion that farm animal faeces exposure and childhood infections will prevent allergies has been promoted for decades. The hygiene hypothesis essentially links a more clean and sterile home environment with the overall rise in allergies seen in many developed Western counties. Poor living conditions with early exposure to germs, infections and parasites seem to shift the infant’s immune system into survival mode (TH1) and away from allergy mode (TH2) when allergy testing. However this immune switching probably occurs very early in the first few months of life. Therefore as mentioned in the American study, day care centre exposure and subsequent childhood infections may have little impact on allergy development. Particularly if the child attends a day-centre after one year of age when their immune type reactivity is more established. It still seems likely that a germ-filled household with difficult living conditions and plenty of sickly older siblings will be more protective from allergies while a sterile, insular environment in early infancy seems to promote allergies.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8241774.stm
Tags: allergy protection, Allergy Testing, children's allergies, day care allergies, hygiene hypothesis, immune switching, infections, parasite
Posted in Allergy Testing | No Comments »
