Traffic Seems To Increase Kids' Asthma Attacks

Traffic Seems To Increase Kids' Asthma Attacks.
Air staining from municipality traffic appears to increase asthma attacks in kids that require an emergency scope visit, a new study reports. The effect was found to be strongest during the warmer parts of the year. The researchers who conducted the study, done in Atlanta, were worrying to pinpoint which components of pollution treatment the biggest role in making asthma worse. So "Characterizing the associations between ambient known pollutants and pediatric asthma exacerbations, particularly with respect to the chemical composition of particulate matter, can remedy us better understand the impact of these different components and can help to inform public health ways and means decisions," the study's lead author, Matthew J Strickland, an assistant professor of environmental constitution at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, said in a news loose from the American Thoracic Society.

The researchers examined the medical records of children 5 to 17 years disused who had been treated in Atlanta-area emergency rooms from 1993 to 2004 because of asthma attacks. Data were gathered from more than 90,000 asthma-related visits. They then analyzed connections between the visits and every day information on the levels of 11 different pollutants.

The researchers found signs that ozone worsens asthma, as they had expected. But they also found indications that components of sullying that comes from combustion engines, such as those in cars and trucks, were also linked to grim asthma problems in kids. Results of the study were published online April 22 in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Asthma is a habitual (long-term) lung condition that inflames and narrows the airways. Asthma causes recurring periods of wheezing (a whistling whole when you breathe), chest tightness, shortness of breath, and coughing. The coughing often occurs at twilight or early in the morning. Asthma affects people of all ages, but it most often starts in childhood.