asthma
Asthma - Gasping For
Fresh Air
In
the Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research Vol. 1 No.
4, the ICPA in association with the Michigan Council of Chiropractors
published one such study, demonstrating the positive effects
of chiropractic care on 81 children with asthma.1 The results
of the study concluded chiropractic care is a safe, drug
free, health care approach where the patient perceived improved
respiration, improved quality of life and less frequent asthma
attacks. You would hope that "health care" providers would
embrace this study with hope for this debilitating and seemingly
non-relenting condition. Children's lives are at stake; this
is the primary concern!
Asthma
- Gasping For Fresh Air I.C.P.A.
Newsletter July/August 1998
Antibiotic Use in Pregnancy Linked
to Allergy Related Symptoms in Child
A study of British children
suggests that women who have an infection or take antibiotics
during pregnancy are more likely to have a child with an allergy-related
condition such as asthma, hay fever or eczema. Researchers
at the University of Nottingham evaluated the medical records
of nearly 25,000 British children and their mothers. The study
found that children exposed to antibiotics in the womb had
a higher risk of developing asthma, hay fever and eczema than
did children whose mothers did not take the medication during
pregnancy. Because a person's immune system develops while
he or she is still in the womb, some experts speculate that
factors that modify microbial exposure at this time may have
a long-term effect on the risk of developing allergic disease.
Amer.
J. Respiratory and Critical Care Med 2002 (Sep 15); 166
(6): 827-832
Mode of Delivery and Asthma - Is There
a Connection?
The results of this study suggest that caesarean
section delivery may be associated with an increased prevalence
of atopic asthma.
View
the abstract in: Pediatr Res. 2002 (Jul); 52
(1): 6-11
View
additional research on c-sections
Asthma on the Increase in Spite of Medical Attempts
for Treatment
In spite of medical attempt to treat asthma,
asthma rates have increased more than 160% in children under
the age of 5, and 74% in children aged 5 to 14 since 1981,
Today, asthma is the most chronic childhood illness affecting
upwards of 5 million children. It accounts for an estimated
11.8 million school days missed per year nationwide, as well
as loss of parental work-days. In 1994, the US spent an estimated
$10.7 billion on asthma.
Pediatrics
2002 (May); 109 (5): 919-930
Day Care Linked To Asthma
Children who are enrolled in day care centers
before their second birthday may be at increased risk for
developing asthma, according to the results of this study
of more than 3700 Norwegian preschool children.
Investigators
say that about 80% of children in the cohort attended day care
centers. Those who had been enrolled before the age of 2 had
an 11.7% incidence of asthma, compared with 8.8% in children
who started day care later. Among children who had never attended
day care the incidence of asthma was 8.6%.
Unvaccinated Children Have Less Asthma
The following is a reprint from the February
1998 issue of The Vaccine Reaction Newsletter published
by the National Vaccine Information Center.
In an article entitled "The Dark Side of
Immunizations", Science News reviews new reports
by researchers that show that vaccinated children have a
higher incidence of asthma and diabetes than do unvaccinated
children. Science News reports that a study by researchers
at the Wellington School of Medicine in New Zealand found
that unvaccinated New Zealand children report fewer cases
of asthma than vaccinated children.
Another study by New Zealand
researchers published in the November 1997 Epidemiology 1
analyzed the health of 1,265 people born in 1977. Of these, 23 didn't
get any childhood vaccinations and none of them suffered
childhood asthma. Among the 1,242 who got polio and
DPT shots, more than 23 percent later had episodes of asthma.
Science
News adds that a 1994 survey of 446 British children, most
of them eight years old, showed that 91 received no vaccinations
in early childhood. Only
one child out of 91 got asthma. About 11 percent of
the other 355 children who had been vaccinated with pertussis
and other vaccines had asthma. The article goes on
to note that animal studies indicate that an absence of contact
with naturally occurring viruses increases the risk of diabetes
and that research in humans suggests that some childhood
infections may prime a person's immune system to fight off
asthma.
Howard L. Weiner, an immunologist at Harvard
Medial School in Boston, is quoted in the article as saying
that immunization skews the activity of the immune system
and "if a person has a tendency toward a disease at a certain
age, a vaccine might ... make [him or her] more susceptible
later, when other challenges come along." He added, "It's
logical that there might be some immune manipulation that
happens in childhood that might have a positive or negative
effect on these diseases."
1 Kemp T, Pearce N, Fitzharris P,
et.al. Is
infant immunization a risk factor for childhood asthma
or allergy? Epidemiology 1997 (Nov); 8 (6): 678-680
Please
Visit the National Vaccine Information Center @ www.909shot.com for
Additional Information
Asthma
Despite the improved in-depth understanding
of the pathophysiology of asthma, mortality due to asthma
continues to rise at an alarming rate as over 5,000 asthma-related
deaths last year 1 represent the ultimate management and
treatment failure. Patients with asthma account
for 2 million emergency room visits and one half million
hospitalizations per year, with patients under age 15 having
the highest representation. 2 Asthmatics account for:
20 million
outpatient visits per year
1.6 million emergency room visits per year
500, 000 hospitalizations per year
20 million lost work days per year
10 million lost school days per year
35 million prescriptions per year
References:
1 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Surveillance for Asthma -- US, 1960-1995. (CDC Surveillance Summaries.) MMWR.
1998;47:1022-1025
2 National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), National
Health Interview Survey. 1982-1994.
Available at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhis.htm
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