A Hunter May Have Allergies Asthma A Heart Condition

Signs Symptoms And Complications

How often signs and symptoms of asthma occur may depend on how severe, or intense, the asthma is and whether you are exposed to allergens. Some people have symptoms every day, while others have symptoms only a few days of the year. For some people, asthma may cause discomfort but does not interfere with daily activities. If you have more severe asthma, however, your asthma may limit what you are able to do.

When asthma is well controlled, a person shows few symptoms. When symptoms worsen, a person can have what is called an asthma attack, or an exacerbation. Over time, uncontrolled asthma can damage the airways in the lungs.

The Many Different Ingredients In Tea That Help Boost Immunity

• Tea may boost your immune system and help fight various forms of cancer thanks to its antioxidants and other beneficial compounds.
• Certain brews, such as green tea, may provide more potential health benefits than others.
• Tea may help your immune system, but it’s important to remember that it is not regulated by the FDA or any other entity.
• Visit Insider’s Health Reference library for more advice.

Tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world aside from water, and research shows it may help boost the immune system and fend off chronic illness.

“Tea may boost your immune system, and may help fight various forms of cancer due to antioxidants and plant chemicals,” says Dana Hunnes, PhD, senior dietitian at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Centre and professor at the Fielding School of Public Health.

In fact, tea has played a large role in herbal healing among Asian cultures for centuries. And when it was first introduced to Western cultures in the 1600s, tea was advertised as a medicine.Although research on its health benefits remains inconclusive, drinking tea is generally associated with better health.

Certain brews may provide more potential health benefits than others. It all comes down to the ingredients and different plant compounds in your tea. Here are some teas that may help strengthen a weakened immune system.

Side Effects Of Suffering From Asthma

Asthma is one of the most common health complications worldwide. In the United States alone, asthma affects over twenty-five million individuals, while in Canada the figure is roughly four million. Asthma is a chronic respiratory disease that causes inflammation of the airways, constricting the passages of the lungs. Asthma can make it more difficult for affected individuals to breathe, particularly when they physically exert themselves, and lead to a host of complications if left untreated. While difficulty breathing is the most common symptom of asthma affected individuals will experience, there is a host of other unfortunate effects from this respiratory illness they can encounter as well.

Get to know the full side effects of asthma now.

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Having Asthma Could Double Your Risk Of A Heart Attack

Asthma symptoms may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, heart attack, and stroke.

What does asthma, an inflammatory disease of the lungs that causes breathing problems, have to do with your heart? According to new research, active asthma can double the risk of a cardiovascular event like a heart attack, stroke, or related condition, and taking daily medication for asthma can increase the risk of a cardiovascular event by 60 percent over 10 years.

An inhaler, it turns out, can both rescue and endanger.

Asthma and heart disease may at first seem to have little in common one affects your respiratory system and the other your cardiovascular system. But the two are among the top five most burdensome diseases in the United States, and two studies presented at the American Heart Associations Scientific Sessions 2014 this weekend examined the ties between them.

One study found that those with asthma who require daily controller medication are 60 percent more likely to have a cardiovascular event like a heart attack during a 10-year period. The other finding may be even more striking. Those with active asthma or asthma medication use, and those who sought treatment for asthma within the previous year, are twice as likely to have a heart attack than those without active asthma.

Asthma, like heart disease, affects millions. Approximately 25 million Americans suffer from asthma, according to

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Medical History And Physical Exam

Your doctor will ask about your risk factors for asthma and your . They may ask also about any known allergies. This includes how often symptoms occur, what seems to trigger your symptoms, when or where symptoms occur, and if your symptoms wake you up at night.

During the physical exam, your doctor may:

• Listen to your breathing and look for of asthma
• Look for allergic skin conditions, such as eczema

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How Do Doctors Diagnose Mold Allergy

To diagnose an allergy to mold or fungi, the doctor will take a complete medical history. If they suspect a mold allergy, the doctor often will do skin tests or allergen specific IgE blood tests. Extracts of different types of fungi may be used to scratch or prick the skin. If there is no reaction, then you probably dont have an allergy. The doctor uses the patient’s medical history, the skin testing results and the physical exam to diagnose a mold allergy.

How Air Purifiers Can Boost Your Health

Many of the potential benefits of using an air purifier are related to your lungs, particularly for conditions such as asthma.

By filtering out fine particles, purifiers help clean the air you breathe and lessen the potential negative effects of pollution, says Dr. Taliercio. Purifiers have been shown to alter the blood chemistry in a way that may benefit heart health, too.

Several studies have shown improvements in blood pressure and heart rate after the installation of air purifiers. For example, one small-scale study of 35 Chinese college students found that the devices improved air quality, reducing levels of fine particulate matter by 57%. Improvements were reported in both blood pressure levels and lung functions among the students. Another study found that indoor HEPA air filters improved respiratory health in those with asthma.

However, doctors dont have any long-term data that points to air purifiers reducing strokes, heart attacks or death rates.

These are all endpoints that look at changes in the blood chemistry that can be monitored, and presumably will have benefits for the heart, she says. But such studies have yet to be conducted.

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How Do Your Airways Work When You Have Asthma

When you have asthma, your airways arent able to function as well as they should.

• Wheezing
• Chest tightness

Asthma causes inflammation, or swelling, in the lungs. It can also cause squeezing, called bronchoconstriction , and extra sensitive or twitchy airways.

When something bothers your airways, you have trouble breathing. This is called an asthma attack or episode. It gets harder to breathe because the tiny muscles around your airways squeeze tightly and they have swelling inside.

Your airways will make more mucus inside your airways, which makes it even harder to breathe. These changes in your airways can cause coughing and wheezing.

There is no cure for asthma. But you can take steps to manage it. If you have asthma, its important to see an asthma specialist, like an allergist or pulmonologist, to come up with the right asthma treatment plan. Medicines and avoiding asthma triggers can help reduce swelling and relax tight muscles in your airways.

ASTHMA Care for Adults

The Patch Adams Prescription For Health

Hunter Campbell, M.D., the American physician whose life inspired the 1998 movie Patch Adams, took laughter therapy to a new level. In 1971, Dr. Campbell and several others opened a free hospital in a six-bedroom home, a pilot health care facility through which thousands of patients received unique, humor-infused care over the next twelve years. This hospital-home evolved into the Gesundheit Institute, a not-for-profit health care organization which currently offers volunteer programs like humanitarian clowning trips to hospitals, orphanages, refugee camps and prisons, as well as educational programs designed to help medical students develop compassionate connections with their patients. Were trying to make compassion and generosity the center core of what medicine is, says Campbell about the organization.

Dr. Campbells ultimate goal, pending adequate financial support, is to open a free, full-scale hospital which offers allopathic and complimentary therapies, and inspires other medical facilities to move beyond traditional methodology. Intending to increase engagement with life for both patients and staff, Dr. Campbell also envisions incorporating performing arts, crafts, nature, agriculture, recreation, and social service into this integrative facility. For more information about the Gesundheit Institute, visit www.patchadams.org.

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Machine Learning Dimension Reduction And Clustering

Machine learning is a set of methods that use computing to learn and formulate solutions from supplied data, with or without explicit human input. It is already in common use with various biomedical and ecological applications however, it is particularly useful when dealing with complex, high-throughput and multidimensional data, especially in cases where pre-existing human knowledge may be unavailable or insufficient to decipher the data. Machine learning approaches typically involve iteration, where an algorithm repeatedly refines a model based on observed data until a metric of model quality satisfies a particular threshold. Applications of machine learning in biomedicine typically involve the exploration of data structure, or generating predictive or explanatory models of biological systems.

Data-driven versus hypothesis-driven machine learning for integration of omic data. a) Data-driven cluster analysis used to generate de novo groupings, reflective of shared pathophysiology b) hypothesis-driven classification to compare known phenotypes or endotypes, and to allow prediction of phenotype/endotype membership for additional samples. Diagrams are for illustrative purposes only and do not convey real data.

What Is An Asthma Trigger

A trigger is anything that irritates your airways. Asthma is caused by two types of triggers.

• Allergic trigger: cause allergic reactions. Allergic triggers include things like dust mites, pollens, moulds, pet dander,
• Non-allergic trigger: are usually irritants. Non-allergic triggers include things like smoke, cold air, certain air pollutants, intense emotions

Learn more about different types of asthma triggers and how to manage them.

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What Causes An Asthma Attack

An asthma attack can happen when you are exposed to asthma triggers. Your asthma triggers can be very different from someone elses asthma triggers. Know your triggers and learn how to avoid them. Watch out for an attack when you cant avoid your triggers. Some of the most common triggers are tobacco smoke, dust mites, outdoor air pollution, cockroach allergen, pets, mold, smoke from burning wood or grass, and infections like flu.

Neutrophils And Dendritic Cells

Neutrophils are believed to play an important role in the interplay between viral respiratory infections and asthma., , Infants hospitalized with RSV and other viruses have robust neutrophil influx in the airway epithelium. We identified a potential pathway for the role of neutrophils in virus-induced disease in a mouse model, where, using Sendai virus , we found that the virally infected mice developed postviral atopic disease via recruitment of a subset of neutrophils through production of cysteinyl leukotrienes. These neutrophils then induced expression of the high-affinity IgE receptor on lung conventional dendritic cells. At the same time, the mice made IgE against Sendai virus, which then bound the FcRI expressing conventional dendritic cells and could be crosslinked by the virus. This process led to production of CCL28, a TH2 cell chemoattractant, which drove an influx of TH2 cells and interleukin 13 production, and the subsequent airway hyperreactivity and mucous cell hyperplasia., ,

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Homeostasis And Its Relation To Asthma

What is homeostasis? Like most medical terms, theres a dictionary definition, but thats not always very helpful in understanding what a concept actually looks like and how it operates in the body. Biology dictionaries define homeostasis as the tendency of an organism or a cell to regulate its internal conditions, usually by a system of feedback controls, so as to stabilize health and functioning, regardless of the outside changing conditions. In terms of asthma, homeostasis refers to your bodys respiratory system functioning correctly without increases in inflammation or other parts of the pathophysiology of asthma negatively impacting you. If that definition seems overly complicated and contrived, dont worry, we will be discussing what it means and how it relates to the body thoroughly.

Implications Of Overlapping Asthma And Copd

How-to videos available from the National Asthma Council AustraliaPatients with coexisting asthma and COPD have an increased illness burden1 compared to those with asthma or COPD alone. They have more frequent and severe exacerbations9 and hospitalisations. This is despite having had fewer pack-years of smoking than those with COPD alone.9 Mortality may also be increased.1,10

Asthma may also be a risk factor for developing COPD.1,4,11 In severe asthma, structural changes such as airway remodelling can contribute to fixed airway obstruction and smaller airway size. Single nucleotide polymorphisms have been identified in biologically plausible genes associated with asthmaCOPD overlap but their significance is unclear.9

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Proteomics Metabolomics And Lipidomics

The proteome is the repertoire of proteins produced by cells or tissues, reflecting the molecular effectors and metabolic consequences of cell function. Common proteomic technologies can be grouped into antibody-based , peak-profiling mass spectrometry -based , gel-MS based and liquid chromatography-MS based methods . The general approach is to perform coarse separation of digested proteins into bands or spots, and then further investigate each spot by MS. The MS steps are often conducted in tandem to achieve higher resolution. The information gained from MS can then be used to identify the peptide or construct its amino acid sequence. Sources of proteomic samples include sites of pathology such as the airway, in the form of cellular or fluid content from bronchoalveolar lavage, induced sputum, biopsies or in vitro cell cultures or it may involve the usual blood or urine sample . An accessible type of specimen unique to asthma research is exhaled breath condensate , which provides information on volatile compounds released from the airway.

Researchers Now See Both The Forest And The Trees With 3d Imaging Method

Date:

Oregon Health & Science University

Summary:

A new study implicates remodeling of nerves in the airways as a key contributor to heightened sensitivity and airway constriction in patients with asthma. The results provide new insight into a little-understood factor in the development of asthma, a condition that affects about 235 million people worldwide. The study is the first to demonstrate that inflammatory cells can alter nerve structure in the lungs to cause disease.

A new study implicates remodeling of nerves in the airways as a key contributor to heightened sensitivity and airway constriction in patients with asthma.

The study published today in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

The results provide new insight into a little-understood factor in the development of asthma, a condition that affects about 235 million people worldwide. The study is the first to demonstrate that inflammatory cells can alter nerve structure in the lungs to cause disease.

Airway nerves sense inhaled particles, such as pollen and smoke, in the environment and help regulate airway constriction. In asthma, these nerves become more sensitive, causing patients to develop symptoms of wheezing and cough. Although previous research had shown that two-thirds of patients with asthma have an overabundance of a type of immune cell, called eosinophils, the effects of eosinophils on airway nerves were not fully understood.

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Just What The Doctor Ordered

While the evidence in the abovementioned studies is not enough to prove that laughter will protect us against, or cure, disease, it does indicate that laughter has merit as a medicinal tool. Does it really matter, though, why laughter improves our states of well being as long as were still enjoying it? As a healing force, laughter exemplifies the reasoning behind the why ask why? and just do it slogans. While were often not able to explain why certain situations or phrases strike us as funny and make us laugh, we certainly feel good when they do. The emotional buoyancy and stress relief brought on by laughter simply improves our quality of life. Whether we master it or not, laughter, on its face, is good, common-sense medicine.

While, at this point, I cannot recommend that one substitute laughter for any conventional medicinal procedure, I absolutely encourage its use as a vital complimentary therapy to boost ones immune system function as well as ones spirits. In this light, some yoga studios are even starting to offer laughter yoga classes. Since research suggests that the physiological mechanism of laughter appears to better promote health than humor alone, let the laughter fly. And since laughter tends to be contagious, you could actually help improve someone elses health too.

References:

Symptoms Of Asthma And Copd

Asthma commonly starts in childhood. The symptoms of breathlessness, chest tightness, cough and wheeze are variable from day to day but are worse in the night and early morning. Features of other allergic conditions such as rhinitis and eczema may be present and there may be a family history of asthma. Typical triggers of asthma may be identified, such as house dust, pollens and grasses.

Persistent dyspnoea that worsens with exercise and progresses over time is suggestive of COPD. Intermittent cough, with or without sputum production, and wheeze, may also be present. There may be a history of recurrent chest infections and flares of respiratory symptoms. Onset is usually in midlife, and there is typically a history of cigarette smoking or exposure to other noxious agents associated with indoor or outdoor pollution.

The coexistence of asthma and chronic obstructive lung disease should be suspected in middle-aged or older patients with:

• a history of cigarette smoking
• a diagnosis of asthma before the age of 40 years
• clinical features of both diseases.

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