Air quality warning for Victorian asthma sufferers

Melbourne's air quality will continue to be so poor over the weekend, the Environmental Protection Agency has issued a warning for asthma sufferers.
On Friday morning, air quality tracker AirVisualEarth showed that Melbourne's PM2.5 levels (smoke particles) were higher than those in Shanghai, China.
The EPA issued the warning, saying there would be poor air quality in parts of Geelong, Melbourne and the Latrobe Valley.
People at risk include those over 65, children 14 years and younger, pregnant women and those with existing heart or lung conditions.....

Read more here: theage.com.au

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Bitter Compounds Could Be The Future of Preventing And Treating Asthma

Researchers have found that a flavouring found in tonic water is able prevent asthma, as well as limit characteristics of mice that already have the disease.
This could be a game-changer for the 300 million people worldwide that live with asthma – a disease which currently can be managed but not cured.
The researchers, from the University of Technology Sydney in Australia, found that chloroquine and quinine, substances that stimulate bitter taste buds were very successful at preventing and mitigating asthma in mice models and human cell culture.....

Read more here: sciencealert.com

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Study find no link between vitamin D levels and asthma, dermatitis

Despite previous reports, vitamin D levels are not linked to asthma, atopic dermatitis, or allergies according to a new Canadian study.
Researchers from McGill University and the Lady Davis Institute at the Jewish General Hospital, both in Montreal, looked at genetic and health data on more than 100,000 participants from previous large-scale studies.
They were trying to determine whether genetic changes associated with vitamin D levels lead to a greater chance of developing asthma, atopic dermatitis (an itchy inflammation of the skin) or high IgE levels (an immune molecule linked to allergies). Previous research has linked low vitamin D levels to all three of the conditions.....

Read more here: ctvnews.ca