Tag Archives: children

Is swimming pool chlorine fueling the allergy epidemic?

Is swimming pool chlorine fueling the allergy epidemic?

Swimming in a chlorinated pool may boost the odds that a child susceptible to asthma and allergies will develop these problems, a study released today indicates.

“These new data clearly show that by irritating the airways of swimmers chlorination products in water and air of swimming pools exert a strong additive effect on the development of asthma and respiratory allergies such as hay fever and allergic rhinitis,” Dr. Alfred Bernard, a toxicologist at the Catholic University of Louvain in Brussels, Belgium, noted in an email to Reuters Health.

“The impact of these chemicals on the respiratory health of children and adolescents appears to be much more important — at least by a factor of five — than that associated with secondhand smoke,” Bernard noted.

Taken together with his team’s prior studies, he added, “There is little doubt that pool chlorine is an important factor implicated in the epidemic of allergic diseases affecting the westernized world.”

In the current study, Bernard and colleagues compared the health of 733 adolescents, 13 to 18 years old, who swam in chlorinated outdoor and indoor pools for various amounts of time with that of 114 “control” adolescents who swam mostly in pools sanitized with a concentration of copper and silver.

In children with allergic sensitivities, swimming in chlorinated pools significantly increased the likelihood of asthma and respiratory allergies, the researchers report in the journal Pediatrics.

Among “sensitive” adolescents, the odds for hay fever were between 3.3- and 6.6-fold higher in those who swam in chlorinated pools for greater than 100 hours and the odds of allergic rhinitis were increased 2.2- to 3.5-fold among those who logged more than 1000 hours of chlorinated pool time.

For example, among children and teens who swam in chlorinated pools for 100-500 lifetime hours, 22 children out of 369 (6.0%) had current asthma, compared with those who had spent less than 100 hours (2 of 144, 1.8%). The proportions with asthma rose with longer exposure, to 14 out of 221 (6.4%) who had been swimming for 500-1000 hours, and 17 out of 143 (11.9%) who swam for more than 1000 hours.

The risk of asthma and allergy was not influenced by swimming in copper-silver sanitized pools and children without allergic tendencies were not at increased risk of developing allergies.

“The only plausible explanation” for these observations, the researchers argue, is that the chlorine-based toxic chemicals in the water or hovering in the air at the pool surface cause changes in the airway and promote the development of allergic diseases.

“It is probably not by chance,” Bernard told Reuters Health, “that countries with the highest prevalence of asthma and respiratory allergies are also those where swimming pools are the most popular.”

The current findings, he and colleagues conclude, “reinforce” the need for further study on the issue and to enforce regulations concerning the levels of these chemicals in water and air of swimming pools.

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Pneumonia bugs kill 1.2 million children: study

Pneumonia bugs kill 1.2 million children: study

More than a million children die every year from two pneumonia-causing diseases easily prevented with vaccines, researchers reported on Thursday.

Each year 1.2 million children under age 5 die from Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae B or Hib, they found.

Their study, published in the Lancet medical journal, found an estimated 14.5 million cases of pneumococcal disease such as pneumonia and meningitis worldwide, most caused by S. pneumoniae, with 826,000 deaths among children under 5.

Safe and effective vaccines exist for both, but use of Hib vaccine has only recently expanded to low-income countries and pneumococcal vaccine is not included in national immunization programs in the developing world yet, the researchers said.

“Our findings underscore the urgent need for prevention efforts throughout the developing world,” said Kate O’Brien, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, who led the study.

“The need for vaccination and improved treatment is particularly urgent in Africa and Asia, which together account for 95 percent of all pneumococcal deaths.”

Another study by the United Nation’s children’s fund UNICEF showed that better prevention methods for malaria and action to reduce mother-to-child AIDS virus transmission had reduced childhood deaths from other causes.

It found 8.8 million children under five died in 2008 compared with 12.5 million in 1990. But 99 percent of the children who died lived in poor countries.

Wyeth’s Prevnar, which protects against seven strains of S. pneumonia, is part of the routine childhood vaccination package in the United States and other developed countries.

Several companies including Merck and Co. and GlaxoSmithKline make Hib vaccines. They prevent meningitis caused by H. influenzae, pneumonia and a severe throat infection called epiglottitis.

The non-profit Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization or GAVI provides Hib vaccine to 35 African nations.

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Vaccines could halve sickle-cell deaths in Africa

June 26, 2012UncategorizedAfrica, and, anemia, bacterial infection, bacterial infections, beating, bf1, blister, blood, blood flow, calories, Cancer, cell anemia, children, could, deaths, developed countries, diet, Drug, eating, Exercise, Exercising for Weight Gallery, Exercising for Weight Health Story, Exercising for Weight Health Photo, Exercising Weight, Flu, for, gallery, genetic disease, Gym, halve, Health Health, health video, Healthy Minnesota, Healthy Minnesota Asia, Healthy Minnesota Health Story, Healthy Minnesota Photo Gallery, history, in, is, kemri, kenya medical research institute, lancet medical journal, laparoscopy, Malaysia Health, medical, medical research institute, Nutrition, of, operation, organ damage, organic, photo, physical, red blood cells, sickle shape, sickle-cell, skin, spiritual, Surgery, symptoms, tips, to, training, tropical diseases, trust program, vaccination, vaccine, Vaccines, Vaccines Asia, Vaccines Gallery, Vaccines Health, Vaccines Health History, Vaccines Health Information, Vaccines Health Latest, Vaccines Photo Gallery, Vaccines Picture, Vaccines Video, Vaccines Web, VaccinesHealth latest, VaccinesHealth Photo, Vaccinesover Picture, video, video photo, video surgery, virus, vulnerability, web Health, web Health picture, weightloss, wellcome trustazuan

Vaccines could halve sickle-cell deaths in Africa

Vaccination against bacterial infections using vaccines readily available in developed countries could save the lives of thousands of children with sickle-cell anemia in Africa, researchers said on Thursday.

Tom Williams, an expert in tropical diseases from the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), said 90 percent of children born with sickle-cell anemia in Africa die before they are diagnosed and can get treatment, and half of those lives could be saved if sufferers were protected from bacterial infections.

“The problem here in Africa is that there is hardly anyone doing any screening,” Williams said. “So, as a result, most of the children in Africa who are born with sickle-cell anemia are dead before they are even diagnosed.”

Experts estimate that sickle-cell anemia kills more children in Africa than HIV, Williams said, but while HIV commands vast attention from the international community sickle-cell anemia is “virtually invisible.”

In a study conducted in rural Kenya and published in the Lancet medical journal, Williams and colleagues at the KEMRI/Wellcome Trust program in Kilifi screened almost 40,000 admissions to hospital and identified 2,000 cases of bacterial infection.

While in the general population fewer than three in 1,000 children were found to have sickle cell anemia, this figure increased more than 20-fold — to more than 60 per 1,000 — for children admitted to hospital with bacterial infections.

Sickle-cell anemia affects millions of people worldwide, but more than 80 percent of cases are in Africa, where around 200,000 children are born with the disease every year.

It is a genetic disease in which red blood cells deform into a sickle shape and cluster, blocking blood flow and causing pain, vulnerability to infections and organ damage.

The findings confirm that, just as in richer nations, African children with sickle-cell anemia are at huge risk of bacterial infections because the disease hampers blood flow and causes episodes of acute anemia, Williams said.

The most common causes of bacterial infection among children with sickle-cell were Streptococcus pneumoniae (41 percent of cases) and Haemophilus influenzae type b (12 percent of cases).

Vaccines against both — a pneumococcal vaccine and another called Hib — are given routinely in the United States and Europe, but have been slow getting to Africa because funds have largely been focused on other priorities.

Dan Thomas of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) in Geneva, said his group provides the Hib vaccine, which is made by a range of drug companies, to 35 African nations as part of a 5-in-1 shot.

GAVI has also introduced a pneumococcal vaccine made by Wyeth, a U.S. drug company which is being bought by Pfizer, to Rwanda and Gambia, and is “working on rolling an improved pneumococcal vaccine out across Africa in the next few years,” he said.

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