Rise in asthma may be due to fetal exposure to toxins

[MountainLaurel]

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=31865&nfid=rssfeeds

Exposure of developing fetuses and newborns to low levels of environmental toxins such as lead, mercury and dioxin, as well as nicotine and ethanol, could be behind the recent sharp rises in asthma, allergies and autoimmune disorders like lupus, says a Cornell University researcher.

The real dangers from environmental toxins most likely occur early in life, said Rod Dietert, professor of immunotoxicology at Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine, presenting a paper on the topic Oct. 4 at the 14th Immunotoxicology Summer School Conference in Lyon, France. However, most laboratory studies look at the health effects of the toxins on adult animals.

"We are deluding ourselves to think that adult data are going to allow us to understand the risks of perinatal exposures," said Dietert, referring to the period close to the time of birth. "Right now, we underestimate health risks that are occurring due to early exposure."

He advocates a more detailed two-generation screening in which information on toxins and their impact on immune systems is recorded not only for the adult mother but also for her offspring. It had been previously thought that adult-exposure safety testing when coupled with superficial two-generational tests could predict the health risks for adults as well as fetuses and children. But it is now clear that current safety testing lacks the ability to detect many early life immunotoxic changes, including those leading to allergy and autoimmunity -- an immune state in which antibodies are formed against a person's own body tissues.

More good news about the gradual poisoning of the human race.

[TalkingDog]

1. There are studies that show that LACK of exposure to certain germs

will almost always result in an asthmatic child. This particular study found a certain anti-body marker in children from 3rd world countries where sanitation was below standard. In developed countries, children with asthma do not have is anti-body.

No child with the marker has asthma, no child with asthma has the marker. We are too clean in this country. Too many showers, too much soap.(I even had my Dr. tell me this in regards to another health issue) No time to play in the dirt.

But, most likely it is a group of convergent issues.

[sam sarrha]

2. the germ could be used as a medicine..

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. I keep bringing up evidence that automobile exhaust is a major

culprit, and no one refutes me, but it seems that that notion is completely ignored in the MSM.

1) Asian countries start seeing rises in childhood asthma as private cars become prevalent. It happened in Japan forty years ago, and it's happening in China and India now. This is despite the fact that all three countries had smoke stack industries long before they had a lot of private cars. (The air quality in Beijing was terrible back in 1990, when the broad avenues were filled mostly with bicycles.)

2) Rural children are less likely to get asthma than urban and suburban children. This is attributed to exposure to animals having beneficial effects on children's immune systems, but if that's true, why did urban asthma rates in Asia climb only after the introduction of private cars, and why doesn't owning dogs and cats protect urban and suburban children against asthma?

3) Urban asthma rates are highest in neighborhoods that border freeways.

4) Western Europe has lots of asthma, while Eastern Europe has very little, even though pollution of all kinds is rampant in Eastern Europe--except that Eastern Europeans have had fewer cars until recently. Watch for Eastern European rates to catch up in a few years.

5) Some researchers have said that modern home environments are "too clean" and don't let children get exposed to enough dirt. Uh, I grew up in the 1950s, when most women were home all day and spent hours every day cleaning and scrubbing and taking great pride in having a "spotless" house and criticizing any woman who didn't. By necessity, standards of household cleanliness have actually fallen in the past fifty years. Besides, of all the adjectives used to describe China, "excessively clean" is not one that comes to mind.

6) Anecdotal evidence: I had no allergies for the first six years of my life. We lived on a side street in Minneapolis in an era when few families had more than one car. Just before I started first grade, we moved to a town in Wisconsin, to a house on an arterial that was part of the U.S. highway system. Truck traffic went past 24 hours a day, so loud that my parents had trouble sleeping at first. Within a year, I had severe allergies.

These six items seem to me to at least HINT at a cause-and-effect relationship between automobile exhaust and childhood asthma, but I never see any mention of it in the MSM.

Is it perhaps too threatening to "the American way of life"? Does no one want to be the one to tell American soccer moms that their beloved SUVs and their urban sprawl are making their children sick?

[PaulaFarrell]

5. Agree - I think it's diesel

I use to have to walk past a parking lot where buses and taxis running on diesel would congregate with engines running, going home from work. Every time on a hot day, my lungs would just close up. I've read similar stuff about studies in NYC of kids living close to bus depots - really high rates of asthma. But yet if you read the literatire about asthma, air pollution is not mentioned. It will generally say 'no evidence that air pollution contributes to asthma'. Why not? Because no one will do the frigging studues - because most research these says is financed by coporations, and you can't sell loads of anti-asthma drugs if you get rid of the cause.

[philb]

4. Prenatal exposure to toxins like mercury are a major cause- not only of

asthma but other chronic developmental conditions. And the mercury/aluminum/formaldehyde in vaccines was one of the largest of these.

A National Academy of Sciences study said that over 50% of pregnancies in the 90s led to birth defects or chronic developmental consitions, such as ADHD/autism/learning disabilites
(over 20%), mood and anxiety disorders(about 20%), excema(10%), asthma&similar(17%), etc. etc. And studies have documented that most of these are caused by toxic exposures- with the largest source being mercury- both other toxic metals(lead,arsenic,nickel,etc.) and pesticides as well.
http://www.flcv.com/tmlbn.html
http://www.flcv.com/kidshg.html

But its also known that proper identification of the toxic source and testing can determine the main cause and detoxification usually brings big improvements.