ASTHMA * AIR POLLUTION AND INADEQUATE EDUCATION MAY BE TO BLAME FOR INCREASED ASTHMA PROBLEMS IN FRESNO COUNTY. BUT ASTHMA CAN BE CONTROLLED WITH MEDI

ASTHMA * AIR POLLUTION AND INADEQUATE EDUCATION MAY BE TO BLAME FOR INCREASED ASTHMA PROBLEMS IN FRESNO COUNTY. BUT ASTHMA CAN BE CONTROLLED WITH MEDICATION.
There is an ill wind blowing in Central California for people with asthma. Despite the availability of effective treatment methods, local health experts say the disease is getting worse, not better."Asthma is a significant problem," said Dr. John Rogers, medical director of pediatric pulmonary and respiratory care at Valley Children's Hospital. "We've noticed an increase in incidence and severity." People also are...
Helping students breathe easier Baylor's school-based program for asthma is praised; 8 more elementaries to join effort
Curtisha McGowan missed a lot of first grade last year because of asthma. She often was short of breath and couldn't play with her friends at Charles Rice Learning Center.But this year, thanks to a new school-based asthma treatment program, Curtisha has had fewer absences and was able to march with her drill team in last month's Martin Luther King Jr. parade. "By taking my medicine I stopped wheezing and coughing," the 7-year-old said....
MEDICINE Panel: Shift Asthma Care
IN A MOVE that could prompt a major change in the treatment of asthma, federal health officials urged physicians last week to place greater emphasis on reducing or preventing inflammation of the airways, rather than on trying to relieve bronchial constriction. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, releasing the first comprehensive guidelines for diagnosis and treatment of asthma, said traditional therapy has relied on symptomatic relief of constriction through the use of bronchodilator...

ASTHMA TREATMENT SHOULD BE PROMPT, FEDERAL PANEL SAYS

ASTHMA TREATMENT SHOULD BE PROMPT, FEDERAL PANEL SAYS
Calling asthma under-diagnosed and under-treated, the federal government issued new guidelines yesterday that recommend prompt, aggressive treatment for this common respiratory condition. An estimated 34 million Americans -- including nearly 5 million children -- suffer the wheezing, breathlessness, chest tightness and cough that characterize asthma, according to the latest government figures. Asthma claims 5,000 lives each year. What troubles researchers is that the incidence of asthma has...
Hospital uses new asthma treatment Procedure relaxes bronchial tubes
Highland Park Hospital is using a more aggressive treatment for children suffering from asthma this fall, the start of the asthma season triggered by autumn leaves, pollen and mold. The treatment, called continuous nebulization, distributes a large, continuous dose of the drug albuterol to the lungs through a small machine called a nebulizer. The drug relaxes bronchial tubes to help asthma sufferers breathe more easily.Many hospitals in Lake County treat asthma in emergency rooms or...
Suit: City Failing Kids With Asthma / Says homeless don't get essential treatment
At a time when nearly 40 percent of the children in the city's shelter system suffer asthma, a federal class action lawsuit charges that the city and state deny the city's youngest homeless the essential medical treatment to which they are legally entitled. "Asthma has reached epidemic proportions particularly in this city's poorest neighborhoods. New York's homeless children with asthma are being denied the opportunity for a normal...

ASTHMA THIS CHRONIC AILMENT AFFECTS YOUNG, OLD, MEN & WOMEN ALMOST EQUALLY

ASTHMA < THIS CHRONIC AILMENT AFFECTS YOUNG, OLD, MEN & WOMEN ALMOST EQUALLY
Asthma is an ``equal opportunity'' disease when it comes to age.It's a common condition -- which constricts the airways -- that can surface in childhood or wait until later in life to rear its ugly head. It also shows no prejudice with men and women -- affecting both almost equally. Asthma tends to be a chronic ailment, and, unfortunately, it's on the rise -- bringing with it lots of wheezing, coughing and breathing problems....

LIVING WITH ASTHMA IT CAN BE FRIGHTENING FOR BOTH SUFFERERS AND THEIR FAMILIES \
Asthma is a family affair, says Dr. Robert Fisher.Fisher, a family practitioner, should know. Not only does he treat patients with asthma, he suffers from it, as does his son Joe, 7. More than 4 million American children have asthma, and Fisher calls it a ''major stressor" for their families.''Siblings of asthmatic children often attach horrible significance to an attack" of asthma, Fisher says. He recently found...

ASTHMA DEATH LINK SOARS LUNG DISEASES CONNECTED TO 500 CASES A YEAR IN CITY

ASTHMA DEATH LINK SOARS LUNG DISEASES CONNECTED TO 500 CASES A YEAR IN CITY
Asthma is far more fatal in New York City than reported, contributing to nearly double the number of deaths previously attributed to the chronic lung disease every year. A Daily News analysis of information culled from death certificates shows that asthma is the primary or secondary cause of death in an average of 500 cases a year well above earlier tallies that counted only deaths in which asthma was the primary factor.The new statistics offer the fullest picture so far of the toll the...

AIR APPARENT Asthma investigators look beyond pollution for subtler risk factors.
Figuring out asthma can be like trying to learn a foreign language. Just when everything starts making sense, you get to the complicated part - say, the subjunctive tense."I'm a pulmonologist, and the more I learn about asthma, the more confused I become," said Dr. David Mannino of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If things were only more simple
THE BIG WHEEZE ASTHMA DEATHS CLIMBING, ESPECIALLY AMONG BLACKS
Asthma is one of medicine's confounding paradoxes.Researchers understand the chronic respiratory disease better than ever, and new drugs are highly effective. So why has the death rate climbed sharply, and why is asthma so much more common among blacks?Blacks are three times more likely than whites to die from asthma attacks; black males between the ages of 15 and 34 are seven times more likely to die than their white counterparts.This disproportion has been firmly...

AFRICAN AMERICANS MORE LIKELY TO BE HOSPITALIZED FOR ASTHMA

AFRICAN AMERICANS MORE LIKELY TO BE HOSPITALIZED FOR ASTHMA
While asthma cases rise nationally at an alarming rate, the suffocating lung disease strikes hardest at African Americans. Blacks are much more likely to be hospitalized for it and die from it.Blacks and whites younger than age 65 are diagnosed with asthma at about the same rate. But blacks die from the disease three times the rate whites die from it, according to a 1997 national study. The study also found that blacks were hospitalized for asthma at a rate more than twice the U.S....

ASTHMA AT EPIDEMIC LEVELS IN U.S., INNER-CITY KIDS HIT HARDEST
Doug Kaufman ''had asthma, not any worse than any other kids in his neighborhood'' in San Diego, his mother, Debra, recalled. ''They all had inhalers.'' In fact, the Kaufmans figured Doug had outgrown his asthma at age 8. He even joined his high school track team. Then at 19, while working as a movie theater projectionist, Doug had an asthma attack. He collapsed, alone, a few feet from the...
Asthma growing fast among suburban children
Asthma inhalers line the counter in the nurse's office at Naperville Central High School. During the school year, more than 400 students could use them at any given time. That's the number of documented asthma cases in the records, said Judy Smith, the school nurse.Central isn't alone.Health experts say asthma - an inflammatory disease of the airways that obstructs breathing and causes episodes of uncontrollable wheezing - is rising at alarming...

Asthma, an insidious, suffocating disease, is spreading across New York City

TAKING OUR BREATH AWAY
Asthma, an insidious, suffocating disease, is spreading across New York City in epidemic proportions, overwhelming the public health system as it steals the breath from ever more people. An estimated half-million New Yorkers, from the tiniest infants to the frail elderly, now suffer from this chronic, incurable illness more than 16% of the population.With numbers that large, the city has the worst asthma rate in the country. The hospitalization rate here is triple the national average and...

ASTHMA TOPS CHILDHOOD ILLNESSES, N.E. STUDY EXAMINES ENVIRONMENT, POVERTY AS CONTRIBUTING FACTORS
Asthma affects one in eight children in New England, eclipsing all other chronic illnesses of childhood and flooding emergency rooms and clinics with hacking, wheezing youngsters, according to a report scheduled to be released this week.The study from a coalition of federal and state public health agencies provides the most comprehensive assessment ever of asthma in the six-state region. It found that more than 400,000 children have been diagnosed with the condition and that its...


Asthma on the rise HOUSE CALLS
Asthma affects more than 10 million Americans. It is the most common chronic childhood illness and is one of the leading causes of school and work absence. The number of people diagnosed with asthma rises every year.What is asthma?Asthma is a respiratory condition characterized by obstruction of airflow in and out of the lungs. Two factors contribute to the obstruction. One involves the tightening of the muscles around the airways. The other occurs when the walls of the airway become...

Puzzling Rise in Asthma Deaths Cases,

Puzzling Rise in Asthma Deaths Cases, fatalities increase despite smog reductions
Angelina Alforque knows an asthma attack can come at any time. The 55-year-old Vallejo woman sleeps with an asthma drug inhaler tucked safely under her pillow. She keeps one in the car, another on the kitchen table and, always, one in her purse.``All of the sudden, you wheeze,'' said Alforque, recovering at the University of California at San Francisco Medical Center, where she was hospitalized with asthma last month. ``You cough. Then you choke. Then you...

MANAGING ASTHMA ALSO ON LESSON PLAN, HEALTH: L.B. SCHOOLS TEACHING KIDS, PARENTS TO COPE WITH CONDITION.
Asthma educator Rangell Oruga sits holding up cartoon drawings of asthma triggers - a cockroach, a dust pan, a cloud of pollution emitted from an airplane, a detergent bottle - as six elementary kids listen.``Does anybody remember what an asthma trigger is?'' he asks the wide-eyed youngsters around a table at Abraham Lincoln Elementary School. ``An asthma trigger is like what causes you to wheeze,'' one boy volunteers, ``like strong smells or...
EACH CHILD NEEDS UNIQUE PLAN TO CONTROL ASTHMA
Asthma is the most common chronic problem among children. In fact, the American Lung Association says children make up about one-third of the nation's 20 million asthma sufferers.The statistics are even more dramatic closer to home: In some areas of St. Louis, 15 to 20 percent of children suffer from asthma, more than double the national average of 6.3 percent, according to studies by the St. Louis Regional Asthma Consortium. Asthma is a chronic disease that affects the...