American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine
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Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Nov 2013
Indoor Pollutant Exposures Modify the Effect of Airborne Endotoxin on Asthma in Urban Children.
The effect of endotoxin on asthma morbidity in urban populations is unclear. ⋯ The effects of household airborne endotoxin exposure on asthma are modified by coexposure to air nicotine and NO2, and these pollutants have opposite effects on the relationships between endotoxin and asthma-related outcomes.
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Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Nov 2013
Ambient Carbon Monoxide Associated with Reduced Risk of Hospital Admissions for Respiratory Tract Infections.
Recent experimental and clinical studies suggest that exogenous carbon monoxide (CO) at lower concentrations may have beneficial effects under certain circumstances, whereas population-based epidemiologic studies of environmentally relevant CO exposure generated mixed findings. ⋯ Short-term exposure to ambient CO was associated with decreased risk of hospital admissions for RTI, suggesting some acute protective effects of low ambient CO exposure on respiratory infection.
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Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Nov 2013
Editorial CommentThe bronchial microbiome and asthma phenotypes.
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Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Nov 2013
Various approaches to clinically related research can yield helpful insight. A personal perspective.
Attending two recent meetings (the joint American Physician Scientists Association, American Society of Clinical Investigation, and Association of American Physicians meeting and the American Thoracic Society meeting) and listening to state of the art presentations, viewing research posters, and interacting with young scientists about so much new and exciting human research rekindled my thoughts about how one could now begin research. For me this occurred, with excellent mentoring and supervision, as first a descriptive "looking" approach to identify host immunity components in a variety of animal models and then manipulating these models to mimic disease processes, focusing on the respiratory tract and innate immunity. Next, we moved to characterize these host immunity components in normal humans, before applying these to in vitro and clinical illness situations for patients. ⋯ Now seems such a crucial time to further scientific knowledge and to foster personalized medicine, despite a period of financial restraint. We need discussion of ways to best approach "looking" for still unknown basic information about the human respiratory system. Two special examples are identifying the still unknown cells in human lung tissue and their functions and manipulating the extensive respiratory microbiome.