Asthma Worsens With Vitamin D Deficiency
February 1, 2010
Business Week
By Steven Reinberg
People with asthma who have low levels of vitamin D fare worse than those with high levels of the “sunshine” vitamin, a new study finds.
Researchers found that asthmatics with high vitamin D levels have better lung function and respond better to treatment than asthmatics with low vitamin D levels do.
“Our findings suggest that low vitamin D levels are associated with worse asthma,” said lead researcher Dr. E. Rand Sutherland, from the division of pulmonary and critical care medicine at National Jewish Health in Denver.
In addition, vitamin D levels predict how well “somebody is going to respond to steroidal asthma medications,” he said. “It may be that vitamin D is acting as a modifier of the immune system or a modifier of steroid response in ways that are relevant to people with asthma.”
The report is published in the Jan. 28 online edition of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
For the study, Sutherland’s team took the vitamin D levels of 54 asthmatics and assessed lung function, airway hyper-responsiveness, which is the prevalence of airway constriction, and response to steroid treatment.
People with low levels of vitamin D in their blood did worse on the tests that evaluated lung function and airway hyper-responsiveness, the researchers found.
In those with vitamin levels below 30 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml), airway hyper-responsiveness almost doubled, compared to those with more D in their blood.
Low vitamin D levels were also associated with a worse response to steroid therapy and increased production of the pro-inflammatory cytokine, TNF-alpha. This raises the possibility that low vitamin D levels are tied to increased inflammation of the airways.
The heaviest participants had the lowest levels of vitamin D, the study noted. Asthma is associated with obesity, and this (lack of vitamin D) may be a factor linking the two conditions, Sutherland said.
“There is a potential that restoring normal vitamin D levels in people with asthma may help improve their asthma,” Sutherland said.
But whether vitamin D supplements will help asthmatics isn’t known, he added.
Current recommendations for vitamin D supplements for adults is 400 IU to 600 IU, depending on age, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
“There is likely little harm in adhering to those guidelines,” Sutherland said.
The Institute of Medicine is currently evaluating these levels and expects to announce new guidelines in May.
Sunlight, fatty fish and fish oils are also sources of vitamin D.
Dr. Michael F. Holick, director of the Vitamin D, Skin and Bone Research Laboratory at Boston University School of Medicine, called this “a very nice study that confirms previous observations that vitamin D enhances lung function.”
“It is also known that glucocorticoids [steroids] increase the destruction of vitamin D, thus making patients with asthma at higher risk for vitamin D deficiency, which in turn decreases lung function and makes their disease worse,” he said.
Holick thinks most people, asthmatic or not, get too little D and should take supplements.
“It’s pretty clear that you need a minimum of 1,400 and up to 2,000 IU a day, and if you are obese, you probably need at least one and a half to two times as much, because the fat sequesters the vitamin D,” Holick said. “We now recognize that you can take up to 10,000 IUs a day and not worry about any untoward toxicity.”
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Must Have Christmas Toy Contains Chemical Linked to Cancer
December 8, 2009
Telegraph.co.uk
The group, called GoodGuide, said tests carried out on three hamsters had found dangerously high levels of antimony in the fur and also in the nose of one called ‘Mr Squiggles’.
However the manufacturers insisted there was no risk and that the £9.99 interactive hamsters met safety standards in the UK and the US.
Dara O’Rourke, a professor of environmental science at California University and head of the website-based GoodGuide, said the tests had found antimony at levels of 93 and 106 parts per million, above the 60 parts per million allowed under US regulations.
“The biggest danger is from a toddler or young child putting the toy in their mouth. If too much of the chemical is ingested, it could lead to cancer or other health problems,” he said.
Antimony can also cause lung and heart problems.
Jon Diver, managing director for UK distributor Character Options, said the toys were completely safe.
“The pets are tested in independent accredited laboratories during the manufacture and again before shipment through our own internal diligence programme; their safety has always been ratified,” he said.
The US-based toy maker Cepia LLC also said there was no risk.
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Lung Cancer Not The Only Cancer Linked to Smoke Exposure
December 4, 2009
U.S. News
By Amanda Gardner
Add colorectal cancer to the list of malignancies caused by smoking, with a new study strengthening the link between the two.
And other studies are providing more bad news for people who haven’t managed to quit: Two papers published in the December issue of Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a themed issue on tobacco, strengthen the case for the dangers of secondhand smoke for people exposed to fumes as children and as adults.
Inhaling those secondhand fumes may raise a woman’s odds for breast cancer or a child’s lifetime risk for lung malignancies, the studies found.
All of the findings, while grim, could be useful in the war against smoking, experts say.
“With the FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration], we’re hoping this will be a significant tool to controlling tobacco, although it could get bogged down in so many different ways,” said Dr. Peter Shields, deputy director of the Georgetown University Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and senior editor of the journal in which these papers appeared. “The FDA is going to have to make a lot of tough decisions about how to regulate tobacco, and the more science they have will help them.”
Is this latest round of revelations going to change current screening recommendations? Probably not, at least not yet, Shields added.
One study found that long-term smokers have a higher risk of developing colorectal cancer, a finding that factored into the recent decision by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) to assert that there is “sufficient” evidence to link the two, up from its previous “limited” evidence.
“It took a long time to figure this out because the relationship [between smoking and colorectal cancer] is not as strong [as for some other cancers],” said Dr. Michael Thun, senior author of the study and vice president emeritus of epidemiology and surveillance research at the American Cancer Society. “The question was, is the association we’re seeing really caused by smoking?”
The researchers managed to adjust for other colorectal cancer risk factors, such as not getting screened, obesity, physical activity and eating a lot of red or processed meats. The issue is tricky because people who smoke are already more likely to engage in these types of behavior.
“When they took all of those other things out, smoking was still a small, elevated risk,” said Dr. Michael John Hall, director of the gastrointestinal risk assessment program at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.
“We already know that smoking is bad. That doesn’t change. A positive thing that comes out of this is that if you can stop smoking earlier, you eliminate your risk later on, but the more you smoke, the risk is higher.”
This large prospective study, which followed almost 200,000 people over 13 years, found that current smokers had a 27 percent increased risk of colorectal cancer and former smokers a 23 percent increased risk compared with people who had never smoked.
People who had smoked for at least half a century had the highest risk — 38 percent higher than never smokers — of developing colorectal cancer
The good news is that people who tossed their cigarettes before the age of 40 or who had not smoked for 31 or more years had no increased risk.
Two other studies focused on the risk of secondhand smoke, or passive smoking. In one, children exposed to secondhand smoke had a higher risk of developing lung cancer as adults, researchers from institutions including the U.S. National Cancer Institute found. In another, California researchers found that adult non-smoking women who had spent long periods of time in smoking environments upped their odds of developing postmenopausal breast cancer.
The breast cancer findings were seen mostly in postmenopausal women, with a 17 percent higher risk for those who had had low exposure, a 19 percent increased risk for those with medium exposure and a 26 percent increased risk for those who had high long-term exposure over their lifetime.
Adult exposure, such as spending time in smoking lounges where others were smoking, carried the most risk, with childhood exposure appearing negligible.
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Car Brakes can Emmit Harmful Fumes
November 23, 2009
BioMed Central
By Graeme Baldwin
Particles from car brakes harm lung cells
Real-life particles released by car brake pads can harm lung cells in vitro. Researchers writing in BioMed Central’s open access journal Particle and Fibre Toxicology found that heavy braking, as in an emergency stop, caused the most damage, but normal breaking and even close proximity to a disengaged brake resulted in potentially dangerous cellular stress.
Barbara Rothen-Rutishauser and Peter Gehr from the University of Bern, Switzerland, and Michael Riediker from the Institute for Work and Health, Lausanne, Switzerland, worked with a team of researchers to study the effects of brake particles on cultured lung cells placed in a chamber close to the axle of a car. They said, “Brake wear contributes up to 20% of total traffic emissions, but the health effects of brake particles remain largely unstudied. We’ve found that the metals in brake wear particles can damage junctions between cells by a mechanism involving oxidative stress”.
The teams’ analysis revealed that brake wear particles contain considerable amounts of iron, copper and organic carbon. Exposure to these pollutants caused increased signs of oxidative stress and inflammation in the cells, and hard braking caused most exposure. Interestingly, some exposure still occurred even when the brakes were not being applied, presumably due to residual brake particles coming off the turning axle and the braking system.
A direct comparison to other (model) particles known to cause these stress effects in vitro was not done, so comparative statements cannot yet be made. The researchers hope that future studies will be able to determine exactly which components are involved in each cell-stress pathway. According to Rothen-Rutishauser and Riediker, “Just as for exhaust particles, efforts to diminish brake particle emissions will lead to an improved ambient air quality and so could provide better protection of human health”.
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