asthma
kkrisberg | December 2, 2016More than 2 million U.S. adults may be living with workplace-related asthma, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Published this week in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the study is based on data from the 2013 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) industry and occupational module, which gathered information from 21 states for adults ages 18 and older who were employed or had been out of work for one year or less. Among the survey respondents, 7.7 percent had asthma, with researchers estimating that upward of 2.7 million adults…
oracknows | August 9, 2016As I mentioned yesterday, there are news events involving medicine (more specifically pseudoscience in medicine) that are so ubiquitous and irritating that they’re enough to bring me briefly out of my vacation to bang out a quick post. So it was when I wrote my post yesterday about Michael Phelps’ enthusiasm for cupping, a practice attributed to traditional Chinese medicine that is actually an ancient practice that seems to have been independently thought up in multiple cultures, such as the ancient Egyptians. Basically, cupping therapy is a near-universal practice dating back at least 3,500…
kkrisberg | July 31, 2015Superstorm Sandy came ashore nearly three years ago, pummeling the New England and Mid-Atlantic coast and becoming one of the deadliest and costliest storms to ever hit the U.S. This week, the Sandy Child and Family Health Study released two new reports finding that the health impacts of Sandy continue to linger, illustrating the deep mental footprint left by catastrophic disasters and the challenges of long-term recovery.
Led by researchers at Rutgers University and New York University, the Sandy Child and Family Health Study is based on 1,000 face-to-face interviews with adults in the nine…
kkrisberg | July 21, 2015Because there can never be enough research to illustrate the positive impact of public health policy on people’s health, here’s another one. This one found that comprehensive smoke-free indoor air laws resulted in a lower risk of asthma symptoms and fewer asthma-related doctor’s visits.
Based on 2007–2011 data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, researchers set out to evaluate whether comprehensive statewide indoor smoking bans are effective in reducing secondhand smoke exposure among nonsmoking U.S. adults. (Comprehensive smoking bans are defined as eliminating smoking in…
cmonforton | April 24, 2015Researchers with CDC's National Institute for Occupational (NIOSH) report that nearly 16 percent of current asthma cases in US adults are work-related. The reported findings are based on data from the Behaviorial Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) Adult Asthma Call-back Survey (ACBS) and reported this month in Morbitity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). The survey respondents, made up of adults from 22 states, answered "yes" to the question:
"Have you ever been told by a doctor or other health professional that your asthma was caused by, or your symptoms made worse by, any job you ever…
lborkowski | December 1, 2014A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
Ta-Nehisi Coates at The Atlantic: Barack Obama, Ferguson, and the Evidence of Things Unsaid
Danielle Paquette in The Washington Post: An Obamacare program helped poor kids and saved money. It was also doomed to fail.
Richard Florida at CityLab: This Holiday Season, Let's Turn Retail Jobs Into Middle-Class Ones
Gabrielle Glaser at ProPublica: Twelve Steps to Danger: How Alcoholics Anonymous Can Be a Playground for Violence-Prone Members
Emily Eakin in The New Yorker: The Excrement Experiment: Treating disease with fecal transplants
kkrisberg | September 19, 2014About one in every 10 U.S. children is living with asthma — that’s closing in on 7 million kids. And while we have a good handle on what triggers asthma attacks and exacerbates respiratory symptoms, exactly what causes asthma in the first place is still somewhat of a mystery. However, new research points to some possible new culprits that are difficult, if not nearly impossible, to avoid.
Those culprits are phthalates, ubiquitous chemicals found in just about everything, from food packaging to shower curtains to vinyl flooring to personal care products such as fragrances and shampoos. (…
kkrisberg | August 6, 2014Next time you pass a tree, you might want to give it a second thought. Maybe even a hug. One day, that tree might just help save your life.
Let me explain. In a new study published in the Environmental Pollution journal, researchers found that the positive impact that trees have on air quality translates to the prevention of more than 850 deaths each year as well as 670,000 incidences of acute respiratory symptoms. In 2010 alone, the study found that trees and forests in the contiguous United States removed 17.4 million metric tons of air pollution, which had an effect on human health valued…
egrossman | January 31, 2014“Millions of Americans use antibacterial hand soap and body wash products. Although consumers generally view these products as effective tools to help prevent the spread of germs, there is currently no evidence that they are any more effective at preventing illness than washing with plain soap and water,” wrote the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in issuing a proposed rule last month. “Further, some data suggest that long-term exposure to certain active ingredients used in antibacterial products—for example, triclosan (liquid soaps) and triclocarban (bar soaps)—could pose health risks,…
oracknows | August 14, 2013As you've probably figured out, I like testimonials. Well, maybe "like' is the wrong world. I'm interested in them, something that goes way, way back into the deepest, darkest mists of blog time, as my earliest "epic" post was about alternative cancer cure testimonials. With that post as a start, I've come back to the topic from time to time. But it's not just cancer. There are testimonials for all manner of cures for all manner of diseases. Rare has it been that I've encountered a testimonial that was really convincing evidence of an anti-tumor effect (or anti-disease) effect due to an…
lborkowski | May 31, 2013A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
The Latest in the NPR-WAMU series Poisoned Places: Elizabeth Shogren and Robert Bennicasa on "Baton Rouge's Corroded, Overpolluting Neighbor: ExxonMobil"and Richard Harris on "Breathing Easier: How Houston is Working to Clean up its Air."
Maryn McKenna at Superbug: To Prevent MRSA In Hospitals, Don’t Prevent Only MRSA
Matthew Yglesias at Slate: The Best and Simplest Way to Fight Global Poverty
Eric Jankiewicz and Sara Sugar of Brooklyn Bureau: Bushwick's Struggles With Asthma: What's Poverty's Role?
Tracy Weber, Charles Ornstein, and Jennifer LaFleur of…
illconsidered | May 31, 2013Coal-fired electricity production is bad on so many levels.
You'd think humans could learn from history, but sadly, no, and no. The childhood asthma statistics alone should be enough. Coal burning power plants are a leading producer of asthma causing pollution. And then there's the mercury...and the mountain-top removal, and the waste products..and, well, when do we say "enough"?
lborkowski | September 21, 2012by Kim Krisberg
It really is a chemical world, which is bad news for people with asthma.
According to a recent report released in August, at this very moment from where I write, I'm fairly surrounded by objects and materials that contain chemicals that are known or suspected asthmagens — substances that can act as asthma triggers if inhaled. There's formaldehyde (it's in office furniture, wood flooring, curtains and drapes); maleic anhydride (it's in interior paint and tile flooring); hexamethylene diisocyanate (it's in metal storage shelving and decorative metal); and diisodecyl phthalate (…
dr. dolittle | July 6, 2012
Image: LA Times
Recent research has shown that dogs may offer protection from respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a common virus in infants associated with high risks for the development of asthma. Mice fed dust from homes with dogs prior to exposure to RSV showed immunity to the virus when compared to mice fed dust from dog-free homes. Moreover, the dog-exposed mice had “a distinct gastrointestinal bacterial composition,” that may lend to this immunity. The researchers are now planning on identifying the microbes responsible for this immune protection in the hope of developing a vaccine.…
tsmith | April 27, 2010Student guest post by Shylo Wardyn
"Of all the parasites I've had over the years, these worms are among the... hell, they are the best".
Was Fry from the animated show 'Futurama' right in his assessment of worms being good for him? Did he know something about parasitic worm infections that I was unaware of? Well, in the show, his parasites were doing remarkable things for his body, but does this translate to real life at all? Some people think so. Altman reviews the idea that over evolutionary time, our ancestors were infected with all sorts of parasites and this led to an interaction…
tsmith | February 26, 2010Student guest post by Shylo Wardyn
I recently read the book 'Good Germs, Bad Germs' by Jessica Snyder Sachs. I became intrigued by parts of her book that discussed how babies become colonized with bacteria during birth. The most interesting part was the differences between vaginally-delivered and Caesarean-delivered babies. It was not something I had ever thought of before. With my interest piqued, I did a Google scholar search to see what kind of research was being done on this topic. I stumbled upon an article looking at C-sections and risk of childhood allergies, namely asthma. I…
tsmith | February 22, 2010Guest post by Zainab Khan
In most western countries, germs have become synonymous with the idea of something bad that needs to be killed as quickly as possible. However, people have long been questioning the validity of these ideas; a few decades ago it was hypothesized that not enough exposure to germ can and does cause insufficient development of an individuals immune system. New studies have recently shown that this idea of getting rid of all germs, and keeping children exposure to them at an absolute minimum, may possibly cause more harm then good; over cleanliness is suspected to be…
palmd | February 3, 2009She sat on the exam table looking tired an cranky. Otherwise there wasn't much to note about her appearance---not young, but not old; not thin, but not fat; she didn't smell of smoke or have pet hair on her clothes. A glance at her demographics sheet confirmed that she was middle-aged, domiciled, and employed---and uninsured. But why tired and cranky?
She's been wheezing for weeks and this was her second visit to the doctor for the same problem. She has been using her short acting inhaler every few hours, with some temporary relief, but she's run out. It's hard for her to sleep at night…
revere | January 19, 2009Every disease has a website, it seems, and common diseases may have many. The UK has a charity devoted to asthma that has a site, AsthmaUK.com, with an interesting feature, an "asthma trigger" section that discussed things that may bring on asthma symptoms in people with asthma. Asthma is a disease involving airway dysfunction where it becomes difficult to exhale. You can get an idea of how debilitating this can be by taking an ordinary drinking straw and while breathing in normally only breathe out through the straw. Try it. Very distressing, you'll find. So you don't want to trigger the…