Fish Reducing Eczema and Outdoor Pools Increase Asthma Risk

Fish in children's diet cuts eczema risk: study

Wed Sep 24, 10:01 pm ET
LONDON (Reuters) – Feeding babies as little as one portion of fish before they are nine months old may cut their risk of developing eczema, Swedish researchers said on Thursday.

Introducing fish of any type into the diet curbed the risk of contracting the skin condition by 25 percent compared with children who never ate it, Bernt Alm, a pediatrician at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, and colleagues reported in the British Medical Journal.

"The main finding was that early introduction of fish was beneficial," Alm said in a telephone interview. "There was no link with the amount of fish or type of fish. We think it is more the timing of the introduction." Eczema is a chronic condition affecting between 10 and 15 percent of children that can cause the skin to become itchy, red, dry and cracked. It often affects those prone to allergies.The Swedish study is part of research tracking the long-term health of nearly 17,000 babies. The researchers found that genes played an important role in the development of eczema but breast-feeding and keeping a furry pet in the house had no effect.

Fish in the diet appeared to be important, but Alm said it would take further investigation to establish why. There was no extra protection from fish rich in omega-3 fatty acids, which provided other health benefits, Alm said. "It must have something to do with its influence on the developing immune system," he added.

(Reporting by Michael Kahn; Editing by Andrew Dobbie)
Copyright © 2008 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

Outdoor pools boost child's asthma risk: study

By Michael Kahn
Wed Sep 24, 7:07 pm ET
LONDON (Reuters) – Swimming in outdoor chlorinated pools appears to increase the odds a child will develop asthma, Belgian researchers said on Thursday. Other studies have linked chlorine and asthma but the new findings published in the European Respiratory Journal cast doubt on the idea outdoor pools are safer than indoor ones where chlorine vapors remains trapped inside an enclosed space."The more you swim, the higher the risk," said Alfred Bernard, a toxicologist at Catholic University of Louvain in Brussels, who led the study. "What is new in this study is that we looked at outdoor pools for the first time."
Asthma, which affects more than 300 million people worldwide, is the most common pediatric chronic illness. Symptoms include wheezing, shortness of breath, coughing and chest tightness.

Bernard and colleagues showed that outdoor pools are just as or more risky than indoor ones because harmful vapors remain at the pool surface and do not drift away. And because children tend to spend more time in pools they are more likely to swallow chlorinated water or ingest vapors containing chemicals that attack the cellular barriers protecting the lung from allergens, Bernard said. "We see that the risk of the outdoor pool is equal and even higher than indoor pools because children tend to spend longer in outdoor pools and they are more chlorinated," he said.

The Belgian team tested 847 students around the age of 15 for allergies and asthma and asked their parents about exposure to asthma risks such as tobacco smoke, pets and pollution, and how much time the children had spent in chlorinated pools.
The researchers determined that the risk for the 50 percent of children predisposed to allergies and asthma was directly related to the amount of time spent in a pool. Children with the highest pool attendance -- one hour per week for 10 years -- were five times more likely to be asthmatic than young people who had never swum in a pool, the study found.
"Young children are more exposed because they take more water into their airways and their lungs are still developing," Bernard said in a telephone interview.
(Reporting by Michael Kahn; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
Copyright © 2008 Reuters Limited.

Very interesting articles. Inhaling chlorine must be bad, period, end of story. It does kill stuff, which is why we use it, so it must be very taxing on the respiratory system, perhaps killing the lung "coating" surfactant, or somehow altering normal function of those exterior cells. I would've guessed only indoor pools did this.

Asthma and 5 to 11 Year Olds

New guidelines look hard at childhood asthma By Will Dunham
Wed Aug 29, 12:04 PM ET



New guidelines unveiled by U.S. federal health experts on Wednesday for tackling asthma carve out a new age group, children 5 to 11, for unique treatment.

Drugs known as inhaled corticosteroids remain the best long-term treatment to control asthma in all age groups, according to experts convened by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health.

The new guidelines -- the first thorough update in 10 years of U.S. recommendations on treating and diagnosing asthma -- gave special attention to the growing problem of childhood asthma. They also offered new advice on drugs and controlling environmental factors that may trigger symptoms.

Existing guidelines had called for children 5 to 11 to treated the same as adults.

The guidelines now specify three age groups to get different treatment for asthma: birth to 4 years, 5 to 11 and 12 and older.

The middle group was created due to new evidence on drugs for these children and emerging signs that they may respond differently to asthma medications than adults.

The recommendations point to newer drugs to help control the immune over-reaction seen in severe allergic asthma. Xolair, made by Genentech and Novartis, is a biotech drug that blocks the immune system compound immunoglobulin E, which is overproduced during an allergic asthma attack.

Known generically as omalizumab, Xolair is injected and approved only for people over the age of 12 with severe asthma.

STEPWISE APPROACH

Other drugs should be added only as needed and should be discontinued as soon as possible, the guidelines say.

"Although asthma is a common, chronic illness that can pose a serious burden for patients, their families and their communities, we firmly believe that asthma control can be achieved in nearly every patient with asthma," said Dr. William Busse, chairman of the University of Wisconsin Department of Medicine.

Busse, who headed the panel of 18 experts, said many studies supported the recommendations.

"For instance, inhaled corticosteroids are still the best long-term control treatment for asthma patients of all ages because we have even stronger evidence that they are generally safe and are the most effective medication at reducing inflammation, a key component of asthma," he told reporters in a telephone briefing.

Asthma is an inflammation of the airways. Symptoms can include wheezing, shortness or breath, coughing and chest tightness. More than 300 million people worldwide suffer from asthma -- 22 million in the United States alone.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says asthma kills about 3,780 annually.

Inhaled corticosteroids include GlaxoSmithKline's Flovent and Advair, AstraZeneca's Pulmicort, Abbott's Azmacort, Teva Pharmaceuticals' Qvar and Schering-Plough's Asmanex.

Heck. I'm all for preventing deaths by using steroids and other medicine. Man, almost 3800 people die each year. My question always seems to be the same. Today or the future? What shall we invest in?

If it's special education in schools, we all know school districts have a difficult time with long term planning and investing, which over time costs less time and money. It's the same when it comes to wellness in this country.

Will there be a day when the government realizes that all of these ailments - childhood disorders/delays, allergies/asthma, neurological disorders like MS, and cancer are all related? That they all involve toxins and the effects of a centralized food supply for starters? We will soon be buying nuts that are pasteurized (those lucky enough to be able to still eat them).

Why don't we spend our tax money on causative factors rather than concentrating on blocking symptoms? At record profits I may add, to certain pharma cos. The payoff would be exponential, impacting so many aspects of health.