Dee

Apnea: 'Sleeping Gun' in Sudden Death?


Obstructive sleep apnea may place adults at a greater risk for sudden cardiac death, researchers found.

After adjustment for other risk factors, each 10% decrease in the lowest nocturnal oxygen saturation among adults undergoing a first-time polysomnogram for suspected sleep-disordered breathing was associated with a 14% greater risk of sudden cardiac death or resuscitated cardiac arrest (HR 1.14, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.27), according to Virend Somers, MD, PhD, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and colleagues.

More about this here:
http://www.medpageto...rhythmias/39763

Fighting To Breathe: Living With COPD


June 12, 2013 1:00 PM


Guests

Grace Anne Dorney Koppel, COPD sufferer and national spokesperson for the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute's campaign to raise awareness of COPD

Dr. Enid Neptune, lung specialist and researcher at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine


Listen to the Story:
http://www.npr.org/p...683&m=191028678

Read the transcript :
http://www.npr.org/2...iving-with-copd

Clearing The Air On Changing Pollution Risks
12 Jun 2013

The federal government has been warned not enough is being done to protect miners and fast-food workers at drive-throughs from exposure to potentially dangerous levels of exhaust fumes.

In submissions to the senate enquiry on the health impacts of air quality in Australia, experts from QUT's International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health (ILAQH) confirmed there is no 'safe' level of air pollution, just as there is no safe level of smoking.

They said new evidence indicates air pollution causes negative health effects even at concentrations lower than those stated in international health guidelines.

Finish reading this article here:
http://www.medicalne...ases/261800.php

Promising New Approach to Treatment of Lung Cancer



Researchers have developed a new drug delivery system that allows inhalation of chemotherapeutic drugs to help treat lung cancer. (Credit: Image courtesy of Oregon State University)


May 22, 2013 — Researchers have developed a new drug delivery system that allows inhalation of chemotherapeutic drugs to help treat lung cancer, and in laboratory and animal tests it appears to reduce the systemic damage done to other organs while significantly improving the treatment of lung tumors.



This advance in nanomedicine combines the extraordinarily small size of nanoparticles, existing cancer drugs, and small interfering RNA (siRNA) that shut down the ability of cancer cells to resist attack.

The combination of these forces resulted in the virtual disappearance of lung tumors in experimental animals.

Lung cancer is the leading cancer killer in both men and women. Despite advances in surgery, chemotherapy still plays a major role in its treatment. However, that treatment is constrained by the toxic effects of some drugs needed to combat it and the difficulty of actually getting those drugs into the lungs.

The findings were made by Oleh Taratula at Oregon State University and Tamara Minko and O. Garbuzenko at Rutgers University and the Cancer Institute of New Jersey. They were just published in the Journal of Controlled Release.

Read more here:
http://www.scienceda...30522131212.htm

Gene Therapy Helps Muscular Dystrophy Patients Breathe Easier

06 Jun 2013

Children with a rare form of muscular dystrophy called Pompe disease often spend their days tethered to mechanical ventilators in order to breathe. But results from a new clinical trial at University of Florida Health show that gene therapy improved respiratory function in these patients and increased the time they could spend breathing on their own without assisted ventilation.

Read more about this here:
http://www.medicalne...ases/261519.php