As we come close to the Beijing Olympic Games, a review article, in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) reminds us that the heat and humidity in the Beijing region will present a formidable challenge to all athletes. Moreover, poor quality of air can also affect all athletes, especially those with asthma.

New knowledge points to the fact that a genetically induced lack of filaggrin, a key protein of the skin barrier, plays a decisive role in the origin of allergies.

Researchers at Duke University Medical Center appear to have solved at least a piece of a puzzle that has mystified physicians for years: why so many patients with asthma also suffer from GERD, or gastroesophageal reflux disease.

When it comes to allergies, both the problem and the solution are found within us. Our immune systems respond to foreign substances with an arsenal of cells. Some are programmed to "remember" invaders they've encountered in the past.

People with asthma who regularly use salmeterol are at a greater risk of non-fatal serious adverse events than those using placebos. This conclusion was arrived at by a team of Cochrane Researchers who drew together data from 26 trials involving 62,630 patients.

A long-time microbial inhabitant of the human stomach may protect children from developing asthma, according to a new study among more than 7,000 subjects led by NYU Langone Medical Center researchers. Helicobacter pylori, a bacterium that has co-existed with humans for at least 50,000 years, may lead to peptic ulcers and stomach cancer.

Expectant mothers who eat nuts or nut products like peanut butter daily during pregnancy increase their children's risk of developing asthma by more than 50 percent over women who rarely or never consume nut products during pregnancy, according to new research from the Netherlands.

Following a low-sodium diet does not appear to have any appreciable impact of asthma control as once thought, according to new research.

In the first in-depth study of its kind ever done in the Southeastern United States, researchers at the University of Georgia and Emory University have discovered a link between thunderstorms and asthma attacks in the metro Atlanta area that could have a "significant public health impact."

A study of how pediatricians prescribe asthma medications suggests that while most would readily increase a child's medication if needed, many are reluctant to taper off drug use when less might be best. A report on the study, led by Johns Hopkins Children's Center researchers, appears in the July issue of Pediatrics.

More aggressive treatment of childhood eczema may be an important step in preventing asthma, says a new Australian study.

Children whose immune systems rebound after treatment with potent anti-viral drugs for HIV infection face an increased risk of developing asthma, said a federally funded consortium of researchers led by those from Baylor College of Medicine in a report that appears online in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.