How Hand-held Inhalers Can Handicap Asthma Treatment

Incorrect use of hand-held inhalers can compromise asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) treatment, but a new meta-analysis of treatment delivery failure finds instructional methods that have improved their effectiveness.
Study lead author James Mahon (pictured), York Health Economics Consortium, York, UK, said the research was not in itself hoping for a particular outcome in terms of which inhaler might be the best, but rather “to be able to understand the scale of inhaler misuse or failure and what factors were associated with misuse or failure".....

Read more here: mdmag.com

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Asthma, more deadly with age, takes heavy toll on older adults

In early June, Donna Bilgore Robins stood on a patio in Beaver Creek, Colo., under a crystal-clear blue sky and tried to catch her breath.
She couldn’t.
With mountain vistas around her, Robins felt as if she was drowning. She gasped for air hungrily again and again.
Robins knew all too well what was happening. Something — some kind of plant? something in the mountain air? — had triggered her asthma, a lifelong condition.....

Read more here: chicagotribune.com 

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Babies born to obese mothers at 'higher risk of asthma'

BABIES born to obese mothers are 30 per cent more likely to have chest problems associated with asthma in later life, new research shows.
A study of 2,799 women, carried out by Professor Keith Godfrey and colleagues at the University of Southampton, discovered mothers-to-be with a body mass index of 30 or more were more likely to have babies diagnosed with wheezing, prolonged coughs and chest infections in their first year of life.
The research, carried out in collaboration with University College London and Great Ormond Street Hospital, is thought to provide strong evidence of a correlation between maternal weight and asthma.....

Read more here: express.co.uk