Novel approach to treating asthma: Neutralize the trigger

Current asthma treatments can alleviate wheezing, coughing and other symptoms felt by millions of Americans every year, but they don’t get to the root cause of the condition. Now, for the first time, scientists are reporting a new approach to defeating asthma by targeting the trigger — the allergen — before it can spark an attack. They describe their new compound, which they tested on rats, in ACS’ Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.....

Read more here: acs.org

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Confounding familial factors could influence link between antibiotics, childhood asthma

Researchers found no causal link between antibiotics in early life and childhood asthma, but confounding factors shared within families could influence such an association, according to recent study results.....

Read more here: healio.com

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War against a notorious asthma-triggering weed

A number of people in the City are being affected by parthenium, a kind of weed, whose pollen is a major asthma-trigger.
Though the war against parthenium was launched by the State and Centre 30 years ago and relaunched a decade ago, it has done nothing to tackle the weed menace. With asthma cases continuing to rise, controlling the notoriously mushrooming growth of parthenium is a major challenge for Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and other agencies. “We have not paid any attention so far. But we are thinking of taking up the issue to health concerns,” said Brijesh Kumar, chief conservator of forests, BBMP.....

Read more here: deccanherald.com