American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine
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Vitamin D deficiency and asthma are common conditions that share risk factors such as African American ethnicity, inner-city residence, and obesity. This review provides a critical examination of current experimental and epidemiologic evidence of a causal association between vitamin D status and asthma or asthma morbidity, including potential protective mechanisms such as antiviral effects and enhanced steroid responsiveness. Because most published epidemiologic studies of vitamin D and asthma or asthma morbidity are observational, a recommendation for or against vitamin D supplementation as preventive or secondary treatment for asthma is not advisable and must await results of ongoing clinical trials. Should these trials confirm a beneficial effect of vitamin D, others will be needed to assess the role of vitamin D supplementation to prevent or treat asthma in different groups such as infants, children of school age, and ethnic minorities.
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Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Jan 2012
Comparative StudyAlveolarization continues during childhood and adolescence: new evidence from helium-3 magnetic resonance.
The current hypothesis that human pulmonary alveolarization is complete by 3 years is contradicted by new evidence of alveolarization throughout adolescence in mammals. ⋯ Our observations are best explained by postulating that the lungs grow partly by neoalveolarization throughout childhood and adolescence. This has important implications: developing lungs have the potential to recover from early life insults and respond to emerging alveolar therapies. Conversely, drugs, diseases, or environmental exposures could adversely affect alveolarization throughout childhood.
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Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Jan 2012
A mediation model linking body weight, cognition, and sleep-disordered breathing.
Academic success involves the ability to use cognitive skills in a school environment. Poor academic performance has been linked to disrupted sleep associated with sleep-disordered breathing (SDB). In parallel, poor sleep is associated with increased risk for obesity, and weight management problems have been linked to executive dysfunction, suggesting that interactions may be operational between SDB and obesity to adversely affect neurocognitive outcomes. ⋯ Cognitive functioning in children is adversely affected by frequent health-related problems, such as obesity and SDB. Furthermore, poorer integrative mental processing may place a child at a bigger risk for adverse health outcomes.
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Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Jan 2012
Comparative StudyOverexpression of miR-125b, a novel regulator of innate immunity, in eosinophilic chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps.
Eosinophilic chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) with nasal polyps (CRSwNP) represents a hard-to-treat subtype of CRS. ⋯ The up-regulated expression of miR-125b may enhance type I IFN expression through suppressing 4E-BP1 protein expression in airway epithelial cells, which potentially contributes to mucosal eosinophilia in eosinophilic CRSwNP.