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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has named groups of people at a high risk of developing serious complications from H1N1 Influenza.
In keeping with the last two subpopulation releases which were focused on pregnant women and breastfeeding moms, the Sedgwick County Health Department will continue to send monthly releases focused on different subgroups.
Currently, one of the highest-priority groups consists of persons with chronic respiratory conditions.
These types of conditions, including asthma and heart disease, often arise from smoking.
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Tobacco smoke is involved in uncontrolled asthma, a diminished response to anti-asthma drugs, rhinitis, nasal obstruction, and deregulation of the immune system according to an international expert at the annual meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) in Miami Beach, Fla.
Tobacco smoking has been mainly associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and is attributed to being one of the main reasons that COPD disease is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States.
"Recent studies have shown that smoking can be linked with other respiratory diseases such as asthma exacerbations and rhinitis," said Carlos Baena-Cagnani, M.D., faculty of medicine, at Catholic University of Cordoba in Argentina. "Both active and passive smoking has been shown to be involved in uncontrolled asthma and associated with asthma exacerbations in children and adolescents."
According to Dr. Baena-Cagnani, active smoking also causes changes in inflammation in asthma patients, diminishes their response to anti-asthma drugs, and has been found to induce nasal obstruction and decreased mucociliary clearance.
Children who are regularly exposed to second-hand tobacco smoke when traveling by car have significantly higher rates of hayfever and wheezing than those without such exposure, results of an Irish study show.
Writing in the European Respiratory Journal, Luke Clancy, from the Tobacco Free Research Institute in Dublin, and team explain: “Children may be more vulnerable to second-hand smoke-induced respiratory diseases due to smaller airways and greater oxygen demand, as well as a less-mature immune system.”
But they add that “there is no evidence quantifying second-hand smoke-induced respiratory health effects in children exposed to second-hand smoke in cars.”
To address this, the team studied 2809 children, aged 13–14 years, selected randomly from schools throughout Ireland.
On Sept 12—16, Vienna hosts the European Respiratory Society's annual congress, the largest in pulmonary medicine in the world. As a prelude to the meeting, The Lancet today is devoted to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). WHO estimates that 210 million people have COPD worldwide. This number could be higher because many people with COPD often do not seek medical help until the disease worsens. COPD is now an umbrella term to cover emphysema and chronic bronchitis, among others, all of which used to be considered separate conditions. The disease is the fourth leading cause of death in the world, but by 2030 it is expected to be the third, behind ischaemic heart disease and cerebrovascular disease.
With such a high burden, emphasis on better diagnosis, management, and identification of at-risk groups must be achieved . . .
For a long time COPD has been thought of as a smokers' disease, and not without reason. Those who smoke damage their lungs and create the pathophysiological environment for this disease. However, as Holger Schünemann points out in a Comment in today's issue, a worldwide ban on tobacco would indeed benefit health substantially both at the population and individual level—yet the world is not ready for such a bold ban. Sundeep Salvi and Barnes explore the aetiology of COPD and highlight the need for greater focus on risk factors other than smoking. They argue that smoking is not the biggest risk factor for COPD, and that this has been reported as early as 1963. Interest in COPD in non-smokers has increased in the past 5 years, although smoking has still remained the emphasis of most research. . . .
Chronic asthma is also of interest because it carries a greater risk of developing COPD than that caused by smoking. If asthma development is on the increase around the world, COPD incidence is likely to increase as well, perhaps even more so than the current predictions. Biomass fuel (coal, wood, and charcoal) has an exposed population of 3 billion, compared with 1 billion for those exposed to tobacco—making such fuel an important target in COPD prevention. This problem is not just one for developing countries. Even if over half of those who have COPD are non-smokers, the battle against smoking and health promotion to quit smoking should continue. However, the identification and education of those who are at risk from other inhalation exposures, both at home and at work, especially in developing countries, also needs to become a priority.
Although there is no cure for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), starting treatment early may slow progression of the illness and add years to the lives of sufferers, new research finds.
COPD is a progressive, destructive disease of the lungs that is usually brought on by years of smoking. Symptoms include restricted breathing, secretion of mucus, oxidative stress and airway inflammation. It is estimated that as many as 24 million Americans have COPD, and the number is rising.
Three reports published in the Aug. 29 issue of The Lancet, a special issue devoted to COPD, offer new insight into treatments, including a new anti-inflammatory drug that shows promise.
Only 900,000 of the estimated 3.7 million people with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), an umbrella term for conditions such as emphysema and bronchitis, have been diagnosed with the disease and are being treated.
Although there are drugs available, there was little evidence that they were effective in the early stages of the condition.
However, a new study published online by the Lancet medical journal, shows that the drugs can reduce decline in lung function, even before the disease has progressed to more advanced stages.
Researchers from the University of Leuven, Belgium, used inhaled tiotropium to treat 1,218 patients, with an average age of 64, over four years and gave another 1158 patients a placebo.
Smoking is a risk factor for active tuberculosis (TB) disease, according to a new study on TB incidence in Taiwan.
The research analyzed data from nearly 17,000 individuals in Taiwan as part of Taiwan's 2001 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS).
While past studies have reported increased mortality among TB patients who smoke, none have been able to specifically examine the direct effect of smoking on active TB incidence using a longitudinal design in a general population. "In this prospective cohort study we found a two-fold increase in the risk of active TB in current smokers compared with never-smokers," said lead author, Hsien-Ho Lin, postdoctoral research fellow from Brigham and Women's Hospital, in Boston.
The results are reported in the September 1 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, published by the American Thoracic Society.
Chronic inflammatory lung diseases like chronic bronchitis and emphysema are a major global health problem, and the fourth leading cause of death and disability in developed countries, with smoking accounting for 90% of the risk for developing them. Work by scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and its Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit (MMPU) with the University of Heidelberg, Germany, has shed new light on the underlying disease process of emphysema using a technique which could in future be adapted for use in diagnosis. The study is published today in Nature Chemical Biology.
The researchers present a new strategy for testing the activity of MMP12, an enzyme known to be involved in the development of emphysema. Emphysema is characterised by the damage and destruction of the alveoli, the tiny air-sacs of the lungs that are crucial for respiration and uptake of oxygen from the air.
Cigarette smoke and other irritants activate immune cells, like macrophages, in the lungs to destroy the foreign material, and chronic exposure causes inflammation. MMP12 is an enzyme secreted by macrophages which usually helps them to break down the extracellular matrix (the complex network of proteins and fibers that surround and support the cells of the body), a process important for normal wound healing. However, over-stimulation of macrophages by irritants leads to build up of excess MMP12, which starts to damage the delicate structure of the small airspaces of the lungs, eventually leading to emphysema.
"We developed a tool which, for the first time, allows us to study MMP12 activity in specific cells
Iloprost, a drug used regularly to treat high blood pressure in the lungs, has been found to significantly improve the damage in former smokers, according to results of a multicenter Phase II clinical trial led by the University of Colorado Cancer Center. The results of the study were presented Aug. 2 at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer meeting in San Francisco.
The researchers examined lung biopsies of 152 people who had smoked at least 20 pack-years—equivalent to one pack a day for 20 years—before and after six months of treatment with either oral iloprost or placebo.
None of the 82 current smokers who entered the trial saw significant improvement in the signs of lung disease, but former smokers treated with iloprost showed significant improvement.
“These results are exciting because they show we can actually keep former smokers from developing lung cancer with a drug that has been used routinely for other problems,” said the study’s principal investigator, Dr. Robert Keith, associate professor of pulmonary medicine at the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine and associate chief of staff for research at the Denver Veterans Administration Medical Center.
People who eat lots of soy products have better lung function and are less likely to develop the smoking-associated lung disease COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). A new study has shown that consumption of a wide variety of soy products can be associated with a reduction in the risk of COPD and other respiratory symptoms.
Dr. Fumi Hirayama and Professor Andy Lee from Curtin University of Technology, Australia, worked with a team of respiratory physicians to poll 300 patients with COPD from six Japanese hospitals and 340 age-matched control subjects from the same areas as the patients about their soy intake. Dr. Hirayama said, "Soy consumption was found to be positively correlated with lung function and inversely associated with the risk of COPD. It has been suggested that flavonoids from soy foods act as an anti-inflammatory agent in the lung, and can protect against tobacco carcinogens for smokers. However, further research is needed to understand the underlying biological mechanism".
Six of the world's foremost health agencies, collectively managing an estimated 80% of all public health research funding, today announced formation of a landmark alliance to collaborate in the critical battle against chronic, non-communicable diseases: cardiovascular diseases (mainly heart disease and stroke), several cancers, chronic respiratory conditions, and type 2 diabetes.
The health impact and socio-economic cost of these largely-preventable diseases is enormous and rising, potentially derailing efforts at poverty reduction.
The Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases (Alliance) is being created to support clear priorities for a coordinated research effort . . .
The Alliance's charter members are:
* Australia National Health and Medical Research Council;
* Canadian Institutes of Health Research;
* Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences;
* The U.K. Medical Research Council; and
* The U.S. National Institutes of Health, specifically its National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), and the Fogarty International Center. . . .
The following research priorities have been proposed by some founding Alliance members, for discussion at their inaugural scientific meetings in November:
* Test ways to prevent cardiovascular diseases and complications of diabetes;
* Identify and promote public health measures for controlling obesity;
* Characterize and quantify the major risk factors for chronic obstructive airways disease (both tobacco and environmental pollution) and the development of control measures; and
* Advance research into the problem of tobacco consumption and its relationship to cancer, cardiovascular disease and other disorders;
* Develop interventions to address the above priorities.
Even a short period of 4 to 8 weeks of smoking cessation prior to surgery for cancers of the mouth and throat improves wound healing, according to a new review.
Furthermore, if the patient stays tobacco-free, the risk of cancer recurrence is substantially reduced.
However, full cessation is required; simply reducing the number of cigarettes smoked per day is of little benefit, Dr. Richard O. Wein from Tufts Medical Center, Boston, reports in the Archives of Otolaryngology--Head and Neck Surgery.
Although there are conflicting reports concerning the impact of short-term smoking cessation, Wein says, the sheer number of studies reporting the negative impact of continued tobacco use on postop lung function and wound healing "far outweighs those minimizing this impact."
When Vera Duckworth, one of Coronation Street's most loved characters, passed away 18 months ago, there was barely a dry eye among the soap's 12.5million viewers.
But for actress Liz Dawn, who played Vera for an astonishing 34 years, it was a significant personal moment - not only because it was the end of the role, but also because she'd been building up to it since being diagnosed six years earlier with the lung disease, emphysema.
The condition leaves sufferers struggling for breath.
'My last years in the Street were increasingly stressful,' Liz says, talking about living with emphysema for the first time. . . .
Concern that others avoid the same problem is why she has agreed to be the celebrity ambassador for the British Lung Foundation (BLF) and is heading the organisation's Love Your Lungs campaign, launched this week.
Its aim is to encourage people with symptoms such as a persistent cough, breathlessness or wheezy chest to ask their doctor for a lung test. . . .
Dr.Manuel Cosio from the McGill University Health Centre, in collaboration with Italian and Spanish scientists, reports in the New England Journal of Medicine that an autoimmune mechanism, compounded by genetic predisposition in COPD, would explain the progression of the disease in some smokers and the evasion in others. COPD has a family connection and next of kin of patients with COPD have a much higher chance of developing the disease, a characteristic of autoimmune diseases.
Although smoking is the primary risk factor for COPD in the western world, open fire pollutant cooking and heating fuels in the home is an important risk factor for the development of COPD in women in developing nations. "Smoke can play an important role in autoimmune diseases such as COPD, and other diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, because it accentuates genetic predispositions to the disease," warns Dr. Cosio.
Yet contrary to previous scientific beliefs, COPD does not progress in the same way in all smokers. The authors describe three steps in the potential progression to COPD in smokers: "COPD does not go from stage one, two and three in all people," Dr. Cosio says. "Depending on their personal balance between immune response and immune control some people would stop at stage one, others at stage two, and some will progress to stage three, full autoimmunity and lung destruction."