asthma

People with asthma also often have gastro-oesophageal reflux (where acid from the stomach comes back up the gullet (esophagus)). Reflux is very common in people with asthma. It may be a trigger for asthma, or alternatively, asthma may trigger reflux. Treatments that can help reflux include antacids and drugs to suppress stomach acids or empty the stomach. ...

A review of the current literature suggests that reduction in the amount of dietary sodium consumed has no significant effect on the symptoms of asthma but may be associated with improvements in some lung function measurements in exercise-induced asthma.

Asthma is a common illness causing wheezing, coughing and difficulty with breathing in adults and children. Asthma is becoming increasingly common worldwide and this is especially true in higher income countries. There has been a move towards delivery of asthma care via primary care based asthma clinics in such countries. Such clinics comprise organised ...

In this review, we examined if culture-specific asthma education programmes improves asthma related outcomes in children and adults from minority groups with asthma. Four studies with 617 patients, aged from 5 to 59 years were included in the review. We found that culture specific programmes were better in improving quality of life in adults and asthma ...

Selenium is a trace mineral, and it is thought that deficiency of selenium may play some role in the development of asthma. Some studies suggest that selenium supplementation for people with chronic asthma may help to improve symptoms. This review found some evidence from only one small trial that selenium supplementation might help reduce symptoms ...

Pharmacological treatment of asthma is tailored based on various subjective or objective outcome measures. The objective of this review was to evaluate the efficacy of tailoring asthma interventions based on sputum eosinophils in comparison to clinical symptoms for asthma related health outcomes in children and adults. Three trials involving 246 adults ...

It has been suggested for nearly twenty years that nasal sprays containing corticosteroids might improve asthma outcomes in people suffering from both asthma and rhinitis. Intranasal corticosteroids had few side effects in people with mild asthma, but the improvements in symptoms scores and lung function could have arisen by chance. Intranasal corticosteroids ...

It is possible that early exposure to allergens (substances which cause allergy) may lead to development of asthma in high risk children. This review asks whether the risk of developing asthma, which is a disease caused by many factors, can be decreased by reducing single allergen levels in children with genetic susceptibility, or whether the reduction ...

People who continue to experience asthma symptoms despite regularly taking inhaled corticosteroids are a challenge for management. It is not clear whether the addition of a long-acting beta2-agonist (LABA) such as formoterol or salmeterol would provide more benefit in comparison with an oral anti-leukotriene agent (LTRA), for example zafirlukast or ...

Psychological factors may have an effect on asthma in children, or its severity. As some children with families who are having problems have severe asthma, family therapy has been tried. The aim is to resolve any problems there might be in a family, in case they are causing the child stress and then making asthma worse. The review found some evidence ...