Allergies & Asthma

Throughout the spring, summer, and fall, your favorite weather source may share pollen counts for your area. These counts are used as a warning for those with environmental allergies – explaining what’s in the air and the level of symptoms you can expect. Without a little research, these pollen counts can seem confusing, but it

When warm weather hit this spring, people flocked outside to get socially distant – hikes, walks, camping, picnics. If a scratchy throat or cough arrived, many had to debate whether their symptoms were from outdoor allergens, or if they had come down with COVID-19. As weather gets cooler and we’re forced back indoors, many may

Choosing a college or university to attend for ‘the best years of your life’ can seem overwhelming and intimidating. Moving far from family and living with strangers in a completely new environment can be especially daunting when paired with a severe food allergy. In this blog, find tips to help navigate visiting and deciding on

A breakthrough treatment providing a long-term cure for children with peanut allergies may soon be widely available. A clinical trial at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne showed that an experimental peanut-probiotic treatment led to 82 per cent of children who participated successfully being able to eat peanuts. Four years later, 80 per cent

Most insects do more good than harm, but those who have an insect allergy may beg to differ. A simple exposure could be dangerous or even deadly to those with an allergy to mosquito, fire ant, or cockroach. Is there a way to treat the cause, or is avoidance the only option? This blog dives

Got Food Allergies? Add Milk To The Worries For Your Meal by Carmen Heredia Rodriguez: [email protected], @caheredia21, Kaiser Health News (KHN) Since her son Matt was an infant, Lynda Mitchell knew he had a milk allergy. She controlled the symptoms by switching his baby formula. But when he was 1, Halloween proved horrifying. While trick-or-treating in

Results from a preliminary study showed novel voice and breath analysis using a smartphone app to be a useful measure of lung function, and researchers say the technique may prove to be a valuable tool for identifying and monitoring respiratory disease. Automated voice and breath analysis was found to have value for predicting lung function,

Patients with cancer and COVID-19 have a higher risk of severe disease and mortality, researchers reported. Of 89 cancer patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) due to COVID-19, 32 died, a mortality rate of 36%, reported Michael Dang, MD, a critical care fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City,

Company culture can be a big reason someone is drawn to working for a company, and a strong culture can keep employees for the long run. Many companies have raised the bar in terms of expectations as more companies try to compete with Silicon Valley-type companies – free access to bikes on company campus, catered

Patients diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who reported using marijuana had less risk of in-hospital mortality and pneumonia than non-users, according to a nationwide population-based study. Use of marijuana was associated with a 37.6% reduction in the odds of dying in the hospital (OR 0.624, 95% CI 0.407-0.958, P=0.0309) among patients diagnosed with

You can’t talk about the emergence of sublingual immunotherapy in the U.S. without mentioning Dr. David Morris (1929-2017), a true innovator in allergy. When traditional allergy treatment didn’t work for his patients, he didn’t tell them to give up and live with their symptoms — he changed the narrative on what allergy treatment could and

Kids whose mothers had depression and anxiety during pregnancy were at a greater risk of asthma in later childhood, according to a prospective cohort study based in the Netherlands. Mothers who experienced stress or depression while pregnant had children with a 46%-91% increased risk of asthma later on (range OR 1.46 [95% CI 1.12-1.90] to

There is no medical justification for exempting respiratory patients from compulsory face mask regulations, and doing so places this already vulnerable population at greater risk for COVID-19, a global group of pulmonary specialists said. Beginning in May, the Spanish government mandated face masks in open- and closed-space public places, but the mandate exempted people with

You know the saying “it’s just the tip of the iceberg” – have you ever thought of it in terms of allergy? About one in five people have allergies, but only a portion of them have the typical allergy symptoms – itching, sneezing, and runny nose – that are associated with seasonal allergic rhinitis. Many

Very early introduction of high-dose gluten was associated with a lower prevalence of celiac disease at 3 years of age in a prespecified secondary analysis from the Enquiring About Tolerance (EAT) infant food allergy prevention trial. None of the infants in the analysis randomized to the gluten early introduction arm of the study had developed

The FDA issued a warning Thursday against taking diphenhydramine (Benadryl) at more than recommended doses, following accounts of at least one teen dying from overuse. The agency is investigating reports of teens who have been hospitalized and died after taking part in the latest social media craze encouraging youth to consume a dangerous amount of

earn free cme credit Earn CME credit by reading this article and completing the posttest. Sign Up Study Authors: Cornelia A. Verberkt, Marieke H.J. van den Beuken-van Everdingen, et al.; Eric W. Widera Target Audience and Goal Statement: Pulmonologists, pain management specialists, primary care physicians, public health and policy experts The goal of this study

Note that some links may require registration or subscription. The Pentagon took some of the money meant for spending on masks and swabs for the COVID-19 pandemic and spent it on jet engine parts and body armor instead. (Washington Post) British prime minister Boris Johnson has ordered a 10 p.m. curfew for bars and restaurants,

Allergy symptoms in the eyes – they’re not something to scratch at. Called allergic conjunctivitis, some allergy sufferers experience a variety of symptoms in their eyes during allergy season. For those with indoor allergies, allergic conjunctivitis can stick around all year. Learn more about eye allergy symptoms and ways to prevent the itch and irritation

In patients with chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps, add-on mepolizumab (Nucala) reduced both polyp size and the need for surgery in the SYNAPSE study, a researcher reported. In the 52-week, phase III, multicenter trial, treatment with the IL-5 inhibitor biologic was associated with a 57% reduction in the need for surgery versus placebo in patients

Fixed-dose triple therapy with fluticasone furoate/umeclidinium/vilanterol (Trelegy Ellipta) improved lung function in adults whose asthma was uncontrolled with an inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) and long-acting beta-agonist (LABA), the CAPTAIN study showed. On Wednesday, based on findings from the trial, the FDA approved the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease treatment at two different doses for adults 18 and

Specific genetic alterations in children and teens with asthma may identify those who will not benefit from treatment with the long-acting β2-adrenergic receptor agonist (LABA) salmeterol, a researcher reported. For the study, 241 children and teens (age 12-18) with asthma taking inhaled corticosteroids were randomly assigned (1:1) to receive personalized care (prescribing by rs1042713 genotype)