The next battle in the war on asthma symptom control could be a psychological one, a new study finds.

Children with asthma are missing out on the best drug treatment for their disease, because family doctors are ignoring prescribing guidelines, suggests research published ahead of print in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

Findings released today by the Health Department shed new light on the health effects of exposure to dust and debris among workers who responded to the World Trade Center disaster on September 11, 2001. The data, drawn from the World Trade Center Health Registry, show that 3.6% of the 25,000 rescue and recovery workers enrolled in the Registry report developing asthma after working at the site.

Researchers from Sweden and France have deciphered the crystal structure of a human membrane protein which has a major influence on the development of asthma. They used the highly automated ESRF macromolecular crystallography experimental stations (beamlines) to determine the structure of this pharmaceutically important protein, only the third human membrane protein to be solved.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have managed to elucidate the crystal structure of a human membrane protein – LTC4 synthase – which has a major influence on the development of asthma.

Teenagers who forego a healthy and balanced diet may have a harder time catching their breath. A new study, published in the July issue of CHEST, the peer-reviewed journal of the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP), shows that a low dietary intake of certain nutrients increases the likelihood of respiratory symptoms such as asthma, especially in teens who smoke.

A gene that is strongly associated with a risk of developing childhood onset asthma was identified by an international team of scientists, whose findings are published today in the journal Nature.

A gene that is strongly associated with a risk of developing childhood onset asthma is identified in new research published online today in Nature.

A sequence of breathing and relaxation exercises known as the Papworth method has been shown to reduce asthma symptoms by a third by the first randomised controlled trial to investigate the technique, which is published online ahead of print in Thorax.

Allergies, like the common cold and asthma, have basically defied the best efforts of modern medicine to cure them. Now, a doctoral candidate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem School of Pharmacy has come up with a new approach that offers hope for getting rid of them.

A survey of 1,812 patients with moderate-to-severe asthma revealed that the disease was not controlled in 55 percent, despite the fact that most had health insurance and visited their health care providers regularly.

New data demonstrated that the combination asthma therapy, SYMBICORT (budesonide/formoterol fumarate dihydrate), led to significant improvements in health-related quality of life (HRQL) and greater patient-reported satisfaction with asthma treatment, versus its monocomponents (budesonide or formoterol) or placebo.