The findings, together with the results of a related study, suggest that bedding in households of asthmatic individuals should be washed with chlorine bleach, reported Dr. Peyton A. Eggleston of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, at a conference of doctors who specialize in treating allergies.

Eggleston and co-workers looked at the effect of solution of 1 part sodium hypochlorite bleach to 20 parts diluent on three proteins that can trigger allergies. They found that the bleach solution quickly broke the proteins down to small fragments that are incapable of producing an immune response, Eggleston said.

The results are encouraging, but practical application of the strategy to other household items, such as rugs, upholstered furniture, or curtains, has not been worked out, he noted.

Aerosols released by the interaction of chlorine with these fabrics could be hazardous, and the possibility of bleaching or otherwise damaging the material means that it is too early to suggest that families of asthmatics attack the whole house with chlorine, Eggleston told Reuters Health.

In a separate study, Eggleston’s group attempted to clear 13 households of cockroach allergen by eradicating the insects and scrubbing all accessible surfaces with a strong household detergent.

At 2 months, the levels of cockroach allergen levels dropped by an average of 93% in the kitchen, 84% in the living room, and 78% in the bedroom. Although further small reductions were achieved over 4 months, the concentrations of the remaining allergen in these homes were still high enough to cause allergic reactions in sensitive individuals, Eggleston said.

“The type of detergent is probably important, and we need a better understanding of what materials are most effective in removing these proteins from the environment,” he noted. “We may have to look at something different from the standard household detergents, possibly testing some of the non-ionic detergents that are used in commercial and industrial settings,” he concluded.

The studies were presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology.

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Asthma should not be an excuse for missing school, but it may take some effort on parents’ part to make sure that the child, the teachers and the school nurse all work together to keep asthma symptoms under control.

Since taking cheap medications at the right time and often enough to control symptoms is so important, the school and parents need to make sure that children do not skip doses. Some children resent having to go to the nurse’s office and fear being regarded as sick by other children. It might work best to see if your child, with the approval of his or her physician, can carry a metered-dose inhaler during the day and use it when needed. Many children are able to manage this even in the early grades, as long as they have received careful instruction in using the inhaler.

What can parents do?
Make sure the school is aware of your child’s asthma.

Inform the school nurse about your child’s medications and their potential side effects.

Work with teachers and the school nurse to insure your child takes the necessary medications without a fuss being made, which could embarrass the child and lead to fights over taking the drugs.

Side Effects of Medication
The vast majority of children can be treated with few side effects. From time to time, however, some children may complain of headaches, hand tremors and stomach aches, which can affect the child’s ability to learn. Occasionally, medications will undermine concentration. Teachers who are aware that a child has asthma and is taking medication are in a better position to cope with problems that may occur. Parents may be able to alleviate problems in the classroom by asking their child’s doctor to adjust the medication schedule or experiment with different types of drugs.

Physical Education and Sports
Participating in physical-education classes and in organized sports can cause asthma attacks. But with medication, the frequency and severity of attacks can be reduced. Make sure the school understands the importance of maintaining a normal and stable routine at school, including physical activity. Sometimes children with asthma are reluctant to go to the nurse’s or secretary’s office to use their inhalers before exercise. Allowing children to carry their inhalers with them avoids this problem and increases the likelihood that the medication will be taken and that symptoms will be avoided.

Cold dry air, smog, increased levels of allergens and upper respiratory illness can increase the risk of an asthma attack during exercise. Familiarize your child’s teacher or coach with the schedule of medications your child is taking. It is best if the child’s doctor provides specific information about exercise-induced asthma, prevention techniques and warning signals of an impending attack. Ask your doctor to explain your child’s asthma management program to school officials.

Other Potential Problems
Children with asthma or allergies may have other problems at school. Pets in the classroom — hamsters, guinea pigs, mice and rabbits — have been known to cause problems. Parents may have to ask the school to remove the pets. Good ventilation in the classroom is essential, especially when children are working with chemicals for art or science projects.

Some children with asthma and allergies have sensitivities to food and food preservatives. Parents should discuss these problems with the school, to make sure that appropriate alternatives are available on the school lunch menu. If not, have your child carry a bag lunch. Remember: A team effort can create a positive and healthy school environment and minimize the number of days lost to asthma.

Those are the main conclusions of a RAND Health study, made for the California Health Care Foundation, and reported in the May 22 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The full report was to be unveiled May 24 during an eHealthcare World Conference in San Diego.

Because almost 100 million Americans go on-line to find health information, and 70 percent of them say what they find there influences their treatment decisions, the CHCF said it was concerned about the availability, accuracy and completeness of health information on the Internet.

There are both extravagant expectations and serious concerns about the trend (to increasing use of the Internet by people seeking health and medical information), the preface to the report said.

Some predict that ready access to the latest medical information will allow people to actively participate in their own care, and that the health status of many consumers will improve because of it. Others see the Internet as a Wild West of thousands of sites created by rugged individualists, and worry that incomplete and misleading information may directly harm consumers, the report stated.

Mark D. Smith, M.D., president and CEO of the CHCF, said the report — which is titled Click with Caution — is a call for consumers to proceed with some caution when using the Internet, for healthcare providers to understand and consult with their patients about what they are reading on-line, and for e-health industry leaders to become more involved in monitoring content.

“We know that the Internet is revolutionizing the availability of health information for consumers,” Smith said. The study suggests that there are lots of good things going on, and also lots of room for improvement.”

RAND researcher Gretchen Berland, M.D., the report’s lead author, said, “The Internet is still in its formative stages, and has tremendous potential as an information resource for patients and healthcare providers alike. This research provides guidance both on how to use what is available on the Internet and on the changes needed to make the information better and more reliable.”

The researchers studied 18 English language Web sites and 7 Spanish language sites. Six of the former were chosen because independent industry reporting services ranked them as the most popular general health news sites. One of the 6 was drkoop.com.

They also studied 10 English language and 4 Spanish language search engines, and found that they are inefficient tools for locating relevant health information. Two of the popular searchers, Google and Northern Lights, were judged significantly more likely to reach information related to the search.

The content of the Web sites in four specific areas breast cancer, childhood asthma, depression and obesity was evaluated by panels of leading experts who did not know from what site the content was taken.

They looked at whether a site had information on each of the four conditions, and if so, rated that information for completeness and correctness.

On the English language sites, they concluded that correct information on what they defined as key clinical elements in breast cancer was found, on average, on 90 percent of the sites. For childhood asthma the corresponding percentage was 84, for depression 75, and for obesity 86.

They also checked whether or not a site gave correct and full answers to important questions consumers often have, such as, “I have Stage II breast cancer — which is the better treatment, a mastectomy or a lumpectomy and radiation?” or “How do I know if my child is having a life-threatening asthma attack?” They said they found that the answers were usually accurate, but often incomplete.

Some important topics were not well or thoroughly covered, the report said, including alternatives to standard medical and surgical treatments for breast cancer; symptoms suggestive of poorly controlled asthma; evaluation of depression, and the safety and effectiveness of dietary supplements used for obesity.

Spanish language sites fared far worse than the English language sites, and the study concluded that the health information they provide is sparse and less consistently accurate. They were included in the study because Hispanics are the largest minority group in the U.S. While high quality information on the Internet is important for everyone, the RAND team said, it could be even more useful for Spanish speakers, who face greater barriers to traditional sources of medical care and information.

In addition to looking for completeness and accuracy, the RAND researchers rated the readability of the material they studied, using the Fry Readability Graph method. They found that the reading level required to understand the material on English language sites averaged at college level. On Spanish language sites it averaged 10th grade.

That is important, the RAND report said, because almost 48 percent of the U.S. population has low or very low reading skills, so even if they were able to go on-line for health information, it would be difficult for them to understand what they found.

The report suggested several ways consumers can adjust to the strengths and weaknesses of the information they find on the Internet:
Take adequate time to do searches.

Remember that one site may not provide all you need to know. Visit several.

Be skeptical of sites that are not well-known or government-sponsored, particularly if they are trying to sell some product.

Always consult a healthcare professional to discuss what you find.

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“Allergy shots are probably not useful for these patients,” said Doctor, M.D., the lead author of the study which appeared recently in the New England of Medicine. Children in the 10-year-long study had asthma symptoms year-round and required daily medication to keep their condition under control.

Doctor speculated that the reason the shots were not effective was because the children’s regular medication possibly treated the symptoms, and the shots were not necessary for further treatment.

“It’s also possible that exposure to allergens is less important to the start of an asthma episode in these children than we thought,” he added.

The injections can help children who have a less severe form of asthma, or those who don’t take asthma medication regularly.

“For this group, sick asthmatic children, the shots don’t appear to help,” he concluded. “Other groups of patients may still benefit, depending upon factors such as severity of disease, response to and acceptance of other treatments, and cost.”

The doctor informed me that not only did my son have activity-induced asthma, but a heavy coat of smog was intensifying it. I was advised to keep my son from running around in 90-plus-degree temperatures, from playing outside when the smog was visibly heavy and to make sure that he took his medicine 20 minutes before going out to play.

To be truthful, I never knew the severity asthma had on one’s life until last year. I took my daughter to the doctor and I saw a grown, 240-pound man crying. He was having trouble breathing. His airway had swollen so badly that the machine they had him on didn’t seem to be doing its job.

Then about six months ago, my mother’s asthma nearly took her life. Her asthma became so severe that she was literally suffocating to death. The strain of trying to breath caused her heart to shift and caused a heart attack.

Needless to say, finding out my son had asthma was not something I wanted to hear.

According to the Asthma Channel, asthma affects an estimated 14 million people in the United States and kills an estimated 5,000 people each year.

The Childhood Asthma Foundation defines asthma this way: “Asthma is a disease that causes the muscles surrounding the bronchial tubes in the lungs to contract more than they should, narrowing the air passages. The lining of the air passages becomes inflamed and swollen. Increased mucus production begins to block the passage of air into the lungs.”

Knowing this, I wondered if asthma was curable. The answer I found was that although asthma is not curable, people can either outgrow it or find it gets worse with age. The good news, according to the Pulmonology Channel, is that out of all the children who develop asthma between the ages of two and 10, half will outgrow their asthma.

There are many things that can trigger an asthmatic episode; such as strenuous exercise, allergies, smoking, fumes from cleaning products as well as car exhausts, pollens, dust mites, pet dander, smog (air pollution), medications, and yes, even cockroaches. While some people seem to have no effect to the cold, others will have bad asthma attacks during cold weather.

With proper medications and awareness, asthma can become manageable, resulting in a long and otherwise healthy life. The key to managing asthma is to learn what triggers the episodes and follow that up with preventative measures.

For instance:

Dust mites can be controlled with special pillow coverings. Removing all carpeting and replacing with tile or wood floors can also control them. And by dusting and vacuuming on a daily (or near daily) basis, washing bed dressings on a weekly basis, and getting rid of any and all stuffed animals can help the problem.

Pet dander is not as easily managed, so it may be best to find a new home for pets. If this is not an option, consider keeping pets outdoors.

Mold also plays a key role in triggering asthma attacks, so it’s important to bleach the bathrooms on a weekly basis. If mold is growing on the outside walls, it can seep through the walls causing problems for the asthmatic person living inside. The best prevention would be to pour bleach on the mold.

From perfumes to pollen to food, Allergies can also trigger asthma attacks. For instance, my mother cannot eat pixy sticks because there is something in that particular candy that causes her asthma to kick in.

The premise of the study was that children who are exposed to more children early in life-a measure of exposure to infection, are less likely to develop asthma and allergies later in childhood, than children with less exposure 1.

Dr. Thomas Ball and colleagues, at the University of Arizona, College of Medicine, in Tucson studied 1246 children followed since birth for up to 13 years. 1035 parents completed at least one questionnaire about their child’s respiratory status, in the previous year, at years 6, 8, 11 and 13 and 996 parents provided information on daycare attendance. Additional 585 children were tested with allergens at years 6 and 11.

Children with a lower incidence of asthma and wheezing also had a low prevalence of high IgE concentrations and skin reactivity to allergens. These children were more likely to have started daycare before 6-months of age and have 2 or more siblings at home, than children who started daycare after 1 year of age and have fewer than 2 siblings at home. However, those children who did not develop asthma were more likely to experience more wheezing, signaling infection, at year 2 than those children who later developed asthma.

Dr. Sandra Christiansen 2, Scripps Research Institute, suggests that, “the relation between asthma an exposures in early life probably reflects the effect of these exposures on the developing immune system.” The immune system an infant is born with changes in response to exposure to environmental factors, including bacteria. These environmental factors teach the immune system effective responses to fight infection. But without exposure, the immune system does not learn how to fight germs and build tolerance, and instead relies on the original incompetent immune response. This learning period is time sensitive, for asthma anyway, it must take place within the first 6-month of life.

Asthma Facts

More than 5000 deaths a year are caused by Asthma, with children under the age of 18 making up 4.8 million of the 14.6 million who suffer from this chronic respiratory disease. Symptoms of asthma include cough, wheezing, and tightness of the chest and shortness of breath. Although there is no genetic basis for asthma, there is an inherited predisposition-asthma runs in families. The exact cause of asthma is unknown.

Several variables are know to trigger an asthma attack including: allergies to pets, dust-mites, pollens, fungus and some foods; pollutants like cigarette smoke and car exhaust; exercise especially in cold temperatures; a virus or infection; emotional reactions like fear and anger and some medications like aspirin and anti-inflammatory medication.

Asthma can be effectively managed and children and adults can lead relatively normal, active lives. Quality medical education and the development of behaviors that support recognition of asthma symptoms and their treatment are essential to breathing well. Ask your doctor about Asthma Management Programs. Most health care providers offer medical education about asthma.