Sunday, September 26, 2004

A good overview of asthma issues is provided at the Chicago Tribune today. It starts like this: The air they breathe is clean, their neighborhoods are safe, their schools are top-notch and their medical needs are taken care of by the Mayo Clinic or the Olmsted Medical Center. So why do the children in this town on the Minnesota prairie have nearly the same asthma rates as children living in poverty in Chicago? Asthma as a diagnosed disease has just about doubled in the United States in the last three decades for still unknown reasons, its fury focused on inner-city children, researchers thought, because they live in impoverished, polluted conditions. But scientists are now discovering that asthma is a disease blind to socioeconomic, ethnic or racial boundaries--findings that deepened the mystery of a previously uncommon illness that marched into the second half of the 20th Century like a breath-robbing army. Researchers know genes play a role, but they don't know which ones; they know lifestyle and environment can be factors, but they can't quantify to what degree. And while doctors now have better drugs to fight the disease, they don't have any that prevent or cure it, and they don't even know why the medications work. In fact, doctors still can't agree on what exactly defines asthma. Part two is coming tomorrow. If it's like this part, it's worth the read even if it's a bit long (and you need to register to read it).   11:27:19 PM    comment []

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