Losing Weight May Ease Asthma in Obese People

There is also a correlation of obesity and asthma in children as well. The link is unclear, but may be due to mechanical and physiologic factors affecting the lung and a contribution to inflammation in the body. Dr. Susarla

Losing weight may help reduce asthma severity in obese adults, a new Canadian study finds.

"We were pleased to see significant improvement in asthma symptoms, as well as quality of life for these individuals. This study further supports the need to manage [chronic disorders] to improve patient lives," said study author Dr. Smita Pakhale, from The Ottawa Hospital and the University of Ottawa.

People who are obese are about 1.5 times more likely to have asthma than those who aren't obese. A 3-unit increase in body mass index -- BMI, an estimate of body fat based on weight and height -- is associated with a 35 percent increase in the risk of asthma, the researchers said in a news release from the American College of Chest Physicians.

A BMI of 18.5 to 24.9 is considered normal weight. A BMI of 25 to 29.9 is overweight, while 30 and over is considered obese.

The study found that when obese people with asthma lost weight, they showed improvement in asthma severity, asthma control and quality of life.

The study appears in the June issue of the journal Chest.

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Sleep or die -- growing body of research warns of heart attacks, strokes

Updated recommendations from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine regarding appropriate sleep time should be reviewed carefully.  Too little sleep is consistently associated with increased medical risk. Dr. Susarla

We have all experienced the aftermath of a bad night's sleep: grogginess, irritability, difficulty carrying out even the simplest of tasks. A growing amount of research suggests that not getting enough shut-eye could also have insidious effects on heart disease, obesity and other conditions.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the largest physician-based organization for sleep medicine, recently put out their first recommendations for what is the right amount of sleep. It advises that adults get at least seven hours every night based on research on the link between inadequate sleep and a number of poor health outcomes. 

Although most of us already know that we should get at least seven hours of sleep, a study last month suggested that Americans are creeping down to that cutoff. The average amount of sleep that they reported getting a night has dropped from 7.4 hours in 1985 to 7.29 hours in 1990 to 7.18 in 2004 and 2012. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which requested and helped support the development of the current recommendations, has called not getting enough sleep a public health epidemic.

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Emergency room use for asthma highly prevalent in children

Although poor asthma control is multifactorial, there is no doubt that timely access to outpatient specialty asthma care can prevent exacerbations that result in frequent emergency room visits.  Dr. Susarla

Children in California increasingly are flocking to emergency rooms for treatment of asthma, despite millions of dollars spent on programs to control the disease.

Statewide, the rates of ER visits for asthma symptoms rose by about 18 percent for California children ages 5 to 17 and by 6 percent for children under 5 between 2005 and 2012, according to a Kaiser Health News analysis of the latest available rates by county.

In Los Angeles County, ER visit rates rose by 17 percent for children 5 and older and by 8 percent for children under 5. 

In some parts of the state, especially the Central Valley, the increases were far higher. The rate of emergency room visits for children 5 and older more than doubled in rural Madera County and nearly doubled in Merced. 

All told, more than 72,000 California children under 18 visited the ER for asthma in 2012, nearly 21,000 of them from Los Angeles County.

“There’s clearly more work to be done if this many kids are going to the emergency department,” said Anne Kelsey Lamb, director of the Regional Asthma Management and Prevention program of the Oakland-based Public Health Institute. “We know a lot about what works. We absolutely should be able to reduce the rates we’re seeing.”

At the national level, asthma-related emergency room visit rates have declined in recent years, according to federal health data through 2010, the latest available.

Although ER visits declined in some counties, including Alameda, San Mateo and Marin, the overall rise in California has frustrated public health experts who have spent millions of dollars and countless hours to improve and expand asthma prevention programs around the state. The state and federal governments alone spend $1.54 million annually on such projects in California, including grants to schools to improve indoor air quality and training community health workers.

The reasons for the increase in ER visits are complex, experts say. They include parents not properly administering medications, poverty and inadequate insurance coverage, persistently high levels of indoor and outdoor pollution in some regions and the limited reach of programs that seek to manage symptoms or prevent them.

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What antifungal inhibits molds? its natural....

What inhibits indoor molds? Tea tree oil. JR

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2015, 12(6), 6319-6332; doi:10.3390/ijerph120606319

Article

An Evaluation of Antifungal Agents for the Treatment of Fungal Contamination in Indoor Air Environments

Senthaamarai Rogawansamy ^1,†

, Sharyn Gaskin ^1,†,* , Michael Taylor ^1,2

 and Dino Pisaniello ¹

+ Authors' affiliations

Received: 20 April 2015 / Revised: 22 May 2015 / Accepted: 27 May 2015 / Published: 2 June 2015

 View Full-Text   |    Download PDF [834 KB, uploaded 2 June 2015]   |    Browse Figures 

Abstract

Fungal contamination in indoor environments has been associated with adverse health effects for the inhabitants. Remediation of fungal contamination requires removal of the fungi present and modifying the indoor environment to become less favourable to growth.  This may include treatment of indoor environments with an antifungal agent to prevent future growth. However there are limited published data or advice on chemical agents suitable for indoor fungal remediation. The aim of this study was to assess the relative efficacies of five commercially available cleaning agents with published or anecdotal use for indoor fungal remediation. The five agents included two common multi-purpose industrial disinfectants (Cavicide® and Virkon®), 70% ethanol, vinegar (4.0%-4.2% acetic acid), and a plant-derived compound (tea tree (Melaleuca alternifolia) oil) tested in both a liquid and vapour form. Tea tree oil has recently generated interest for its antimicrobial efficacy in clinical settings, but has not been widely employed for fungal remediation. Each antifungal agent was assessed for fungal growth inhibition using a disc diffusion method against a representative species from two common fungal genera, (Aspergillus fumigatus and Penicillium chrysogenum), which were isolated from air samples and are commonly found in indoor air. Tea tree oil demonstrated the greatest inhibitory effect on the growth of both fungi, applied in either a liquid or vapour form. Cavicide® and Virkon® demonstrated similar, although less, growth inhibition of both genera. Vinegar (4.0%–4.2% acetic acid) was found to only inhibit the growth of P. chrysogenum, while 70% ethanol was found to have no inhibitory effect on the growth of either fungi. There was a notable inhibition in sporulation, distinct from growth inhibition after exposure to tea tree oil, Virkon®, Cavicide® and vinegar. Results demonstrate that common cleaning and antifungal agents differ in their capacity to inhibit the growth of fungal genera found in the indoor air environment. The results indicate that tea tree oil was the most effective antifungal agent tested, and may have industrial application for the remediation of fungal contamination in residential and occupational buildings.