Among four year-olds attending Head Start programs in New York City, those who had older siblings were more likely to experience respiratory symptoms including an episode of wheezing in the past year than those who were oldest or only children.

Workers and volunteers who helped in the clean-up effort after the 2002 Prestige oil spill off the Galician coast of Spain exhibit prolonged respiratory symptoms resulting from their exposure, say researchers from Spain in the first study to examine the long-term effects of such exposures on workers’ respiratory health.

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.

Through age 5, children born at full term with low birth weight show significantly greater risk for developing respiratory symptoms, including wheezing, coughing and pulmonary infections, according to a large longitudinal study on birth weight and development. The children's symptoms grew worse if they were exposed to environmental tobacco smoke.

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection is a widespread infant illness that has been linked to asthma and can be deadly but may be curable by the development of this new vaccine technology by the Sir Albert Sakzewski Virus Research Centre and The University of Queensland's Faculty of Biological and Chemical Sciences.