Learn about Asthma » American Lung Association http://learnaboutasthma.org What Is It And How Can It Best Be Coped With? Mon, 10 May 2010 15:56:58 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Allergies, Asthma and City Trees http://learnaboutasthma.org/allergies_asthma_and_city_trees.php/ http://learnaboutasthma.org/allergies_asthma_and_city_trees.php/#comments Wed, 05 Mar 2008 20:21:12 +0000 admin http://learnaboutasthma.org/allergies_asthma_and_city_trees.php/ Some urban tree species cause an inordinate amount of asthma and allergy problems, while other tree species cause little or no health problems. A large part of the problem is that the arborists and landscape professionals, who plant these trees, often dont know the difference.
The type of trees (and shrubs) used in modern city landscapes has changed dramatically in the past three decades. In the past, the majority of street trees used were perfect-flowered, insect-pollinated trees, such as the once so common American elm tree.
Today though, many of the most widely used city trees are wind-pollinated species. Most of these species are unisexually flowered (dioecious and/or monoecious) and further compounding the problem, thousands of popular cultivars sold today are touted to be seedless, low-maintenance, pod-free or litter-free.
These fruitless, seedless trees are male plants, all male, and male trees produce prodigious amounts of allergenic pollen. Female trees produce NO pollen what so ever.
In dioecious-flowered trees such as most ash, willow and poplars, it is easy to propagate male only trees because they are separate-sexed. Monoecious trees, which in Nature always have both sexes (male and female flowers) on the same tree, also usually produce abundant pollen. It is possible to have all-male trees from the monoecious species. On many species the sexes will be born on separate branches, such as on a Honey Locust tree. If you take cuttings, or budwood, only from the branches with male flowers, then, you’ll get an all-male tree. Lots of monoecious Acer spp. cultivars are male-only plants. In a somewhat different way, there are also numerous monoecious species where only the top or only the bottom will have either male or female flowers. For example, the bottom half of a mature Italian Cypress for example is all-male. Female
wood is found only at the top of the plant. Thus, scion wood taken from the bottom usually produces “seedless” plants.
The terms dioecious, and monoecious, are botanical terms, not horticultural terms. We could perhaps say that a manipulated, asexually propagated all-male cultivar, taken from a monoecious species, is now dioecious, but this is not quite correct. A proper dioecious tree is one that in Nature is separate-sexed. These modern engineered trees are never found in Nature.
Interestingly, the first reference in print I ever found to this single sexing-out with monoecious street trees, was in a USDA booklet, from 1982, called Genetic Improvement of Urban Street Trees.

How Bad Is Allergy Now?
In 1959 the official rate of allergy in the U.S. was between 2 to 5% of the public. By 1999 the official rate of allergy had increased to an incredible 38% of Americans. Asthma, which was once considered rare, is now the number one chronic childhood disease in the US.

Where are Allergies and Asthma the Worst?
The most common allergen of all is pollen and since there are so many more plants growing in the country than in the city, it would make sense then that there is more allergy and asthma in the countryside. Right? No, wrong! Allergies and asthma are far worse in the city than they are in the country.

Several things contribute to this:
1.Pavement makes a poor pollen trap. Pollen in the city often lands on pavement where wind can cause it to become airborne again. In naturally vegetated areas where there is much more vegetation, pollen often lands on and becomes stuck in grasses, shrubs and vines or in trees.
2.Cities have more air pollution, which weakens the immune system and lung function.
3.Stress, which is generally higher in cities, can contribute to both asthma and allergy development.
4.Increased carbon dioxide levels within cities causes pollen-forming plants to produce more pollen with each bloom cycle, and also often causes urban plants to bloom more often.
5.Pollen loads are actually far greater in cities because there is a sexual imbalance within the plant community. In the city there is a preponderance of male trees and shrubs, while in the rural areas there is almost always a complete balance of plant sexuality. The excess of male plants in the city results in an excess of pollen.
6.The very lack of female plant materials in the urban environment also is a prime factor in the epidemic of allergy and asthma. Female flowers carry an electrical negative (-) charge (the trees are grounded with their roots) and airborne pollen holds a positive (+) charge. The tree and the pollen are mutually attractive; thus a female plant becomes a very effective pollen trap for pollen of its own species. But with almost no female trees and shrubs in modern landscapes, most of the pollen remains airborne.

How to Improve Health and Air Quality through Tree Selection
Landscaping to reduce allergies, especially pollen allergies, is an idea that is coming into its own. In the past few years several books have been written on the subject and interest is growing rapidly.
With the addition of OPALS, (Ogren Plant-Allergy Scale) arborists now have a means to design allergy-free plantings. This scale ranks all landscape plant materials on a simple 1 to 10 allergy basis. Trees that produce zero pollen, e.g., female cultivars, usually rank the best number one. Trees that have abundant, highly allergenic pollen, especially those with very long bloom periods, are usually ranked the worst in the 9-10 range. There are many trees and shrubs, however, that fall somewhere in between. Using a list of over 100 factors, OPALS numerically ranks each species and then further ranks the individual cultivars. There are often dramatic allergy differences even between two species in the same genus.

How Are Plants Allergy-Ranked?
OPALS was developed based on the following considerations: What do plants that are well known to cause allergies have in common? and What do plants that are well known NOT to cause allergies have in common? With these two questions it was possible to build two opposing sets of medical-botanical-allergy criteria. One set is positive and one set is negative. Examples of negative criteria: tiny flowers, excerted stamens, small (less than 25 microns in diameter) sized pollen grains, extended bloom period. Examples of positive criteria: complete flowered, sticky, heavy pollen grains, presence of nectaries, brief bloom period.
There are now over a hundred criteria used to develop OPALS rankings. Individual landscapers, city arborists, the USDA and the American Lung Association have already use the scale to make better landscaping decisions.
Based on the plant-allergy scale it is now possible to state, for example, that Acer rubrum Red Sunset maple, is ranked number one and causes no allergies. By comparison, Autumn Spire, a male cultivar of red maple does cause allergies and is ranked number nine. Most Pine trees will rank at numbers 4 to 5 and will cause some allergy. Platanus species (sycamore) rank number eight, and cause quite a bit of allergy. A male Canary Island Palm, Phoenix canariensis, which is considered one of the worst at a ranking of 10, will produce an abundance of pollen that will cause severe allergic reactions to many living nearby.
Pollen dispersal rates have been measured since 1972 (Gilbert Raynor, NY meteorologist) and although many pollen grains travel far in the air, research shows that most often 99% of a tree’s pollen falls out and sticks within fifty feet of the tree. This means that the closer one is to the pollinating tree the greater the exposure. Thus, the job for arborists is to plant trees that will not expose everyone near them to allergenic pollen.

So, How Do You Tell the Boys from the Girls?
It isnt always that obvious by looking at a tree (especially a young tree) as to whether or not it is a pollen-free female or a pollen-producing male. But since so many city trees are now asexually produced cultivars, the sex is predetermined. In the book Allergy-Free Gardening, which is the result of 15 years of research on this subject, several thousand trees were individually sexed and allergy-ranked. In some cities, pollen control ordinances are already on the books, although most of these could be improved an updated. Albuquerque, New Mexico is particular interesting, since it has attempted to curb allergies by prohibiting the sale and planting of any male cultivars.
As the public grows more knowledgeable about allergy-free landscapes, municipal arborists and landscape specialists will want to be ahead of the curve. They will want to show their clients that they are well-informed on the subject. In the future, instead of planting high allergy-trees, they will need to plan and plant healthy urban landscapes.

References:
1.Lewis, Walter H., Airborne and Allergenic Pollen of North America, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland, 1976.
2.Jacobson, Arthur Lee, North American Landscape Trees, Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, California, 1996.
3.Koch, Christopher Von, Allergy, Die Woche, pg. 27, July 7, 2000, Hamburg, Germany.
4.Dworschak, Manfred, Der Spiegel, Feind am StraBenrad, Pp. 174, 175, Nr. 29, 2000.
5.Ogren, Thomas Leo, Turn Back the Pollen Clock, New Scientist, London, Pp. 46, 47, June 3rd, 2000.

About the Author

Thomas Ogren is the author of Allergy-Free Gardening, Ten Speed Press. Tom does consulting work on plants and allergies for the USDA, county asthma coalitions, and the Canadian and American Lung Associations. He has appeared on HGTV and The Discovery Channel. His book, Safe Sex in the Garden, was published in 2003. In 2004 Time Warner Books published his latest book: What the Experts May NOT Tell You About: Growing the Perfect Lawn. His website: www.allergyfree-gardening.com

Written By: Thomas Ogren

]]> http://learnaboutasthma.org/allergies_asthma_and_city_trees.php/feed/ 0 Parents Outlive Children http://learnaboutasthma.org/parents_outlive_children.php/ http://learnaboutasthma.org/parents_outlive_children.php/#comments Sat, 28 Jul 2007 13:53:38 +0000 admin http://learnaboutasthma.org/parents_outlive_children.php/ “Children born in the year 2000 or later are not expected to outlive their parents” stated Dr. David Katz of the Yale Preventive Medicine Research Center in New Haven, Connecticut at a nutrition conference last April. In March of last year, Dr. Katz quoted in a Wall Street Journal article that a ‘poor diet in kids is more dangerous than alcohol, drugs, and tobacco combined!”

Is this guy crazy? Could this really be happening? Are American kids really that sick?

Think of some kids you know. Do they have dark circles under their eyes? What about there skin? Does it have a healthy glow or a dull, clammy look? What about their hair? Their physic? Are they lean or a little on the chunky side?

If you know healthy kids today, statistics are showing they may be sick in the future. The food children and teens are allowed to eat today, will determine the disease they contract tomorrow. If we do not pay attention to what our children are eating, in the next 10 years we will see 16 & 17 yr olds dying of heart disease on a regular basis, according to Dr. Katz.

Is there evidence today backing up Dr. Katz’s claim outrageous claims?

According to the Children’s Environment Health Network, cancer kills more kids than any other disease. We’re talking about acute leukemias and tumors of the brain, nervous system, lymphatic system, kidneys, bones, and muscles. Dr. Delia Garcia, Radiology Oncologist in St. Louis has already begun treating teenagers with breast cancer. She believes kids should be considering their prom date, not their cancer treatment.

Next, according to the International Journal of Obesity, type 2 diabetes, previously referred to adult onset, has increased 10 fold in the past twenty years. This increase is so startling that it is being called an epidemic. Researchers are studying this new phenomenon and do not yet fully understand the reasons for such a change, however many believe that the increased incidence of obesity in children and adolescents, along with sedentary lifestyles and poor eating habits, is responsible.

Last, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention stated that today over 8 million children have asthma, up 232% in the last 40 years. The American Lung Association reports that asthma is the third leading cause of hospitalization among children under the age of 15.

Why are our kids so sick? One reason is we eat too much bad food. The top 3 foods consumed in America are hot dogs, white bread and coffee. In 1970 we spent 6 billion on fast food. Today, we spend over 110 billion. Americans spend more on fast food than higher education, books and computers.

Over 4500 published medical studies have proven that fruits and vegetables are the key to disease prevention. All major health organizations agree that fruit and vegetable nutrition is key to a healthy life.

I’d like to share an easy solution for you and the children you love. This solution has indisputable research from high caliber, reputable, independent universities with published clinical research. This solution will provide your body with much needed antioxidants. Our bodies are whole food deficient, not vitamin deficient. This solution will deliver whole food nutrition from 25 different fruits and vegetables to your body everyday. You can no longer ignore the health epidemic in America today and the crisis our children face. Would you like to help your body fill the nutritional gap in you and your families life? I believe Dr. Katz’s comments are on target. Please visit www.AddJP.com or contact me at Lori@AddJP for more information.. Thank you.

About the author:

Hi, my name is Lori Woosley and I am a Nutrition FREAK. Many of my clients come to me because they are concerned that they are unable to incorporate 9-13 servings of fruits and vegetables into their diet every day and that’s where I come in. I resolve this by introducing them to a whole-food supplement, resolving that problem forever.

Written By: Lori Woosley

]]> http://learnaboutasthma.org/parents_outlive_children.php/feed/ 0 The Four Major Types of Air Filters http://learnaboutasthma.org/the_four_major_types_of_air_filters.php/ http://learnaboutasthma.org/the_four_major_types_of_air_filters.php/#comments Tue, 23 Jan 2007 16:16:34 +0000 admin http://learnaboutasthma.org/the_four_major_types_of_air_filters.php/ Hygienic air is essential to human life, and in this modern age, that requires air cleaners. There are a few different methods of air cleaning, like Filtration, Electro-static Precipitation and Ion Generation. Air Filtration cleans air through the removal of sub-micron particulate, gases and odors. If you are plagued by allergies or asthma, an air filter might help you. Air filters are the best tools for eradicating allergens from the house. Particularly for those people who are suffering from asthma and allergies, both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the American Lung Association recommend air filtration.

The ability to remove allergens and contaminants depends on the amount of air drawn through the filter. Factors that affect filter efficiency include fiber size, fiber density, airflow rate, and particle diameter. Air filters may be centralized, in-home filtration systems or portable devices. When the air quality problems exist throughout the house, then a centralized filtration system is needed. Otherwise, portable cleaner may serve the purpose of air filtration.

There are four major types of air filters, depending on specific needs. They are:

Mechanical Filters
These filters force air through a special screen that traps pollen, dust particulate, smoke and air-borne irritants and pet dander. The best example of this type of filters is HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air) filter.

Gas Phase Filters
These air filters are used for removing odors and other types of pollutants such as gases from cooking, paints, perfume etc. These filters are not meant for the removal of allergens in the home.

Electronic Filters
In these types of filters, allergens are trapped through electrostatic precipitators with a fan. Electronic filters use electric charges to attract contaminants.

Hybrid Filters
These air filters combine electrostatic and mechanical filters. These are used to trap allergens rather than gas based contaminants.

Another type of air filters is the Ozone air filter, but it is not environment-friendly.

When purchasing an air filter, one has to consider things like which type of allergens will be removed, the filters efficiency with respect to HEPA standards, the clean air delivery rate (CADR) of the filter, the ease of changing the filter, and the noise that it will make. Changing air filters regularly facilitates is ability to improve the quality of air.

About the Author

Air Filters Info provides detailed information on home, car, electronic, and HEPA air filters, as well as air conditioner filters and air filter manufacturers. Air Filters Info is the sister site of Air Purifiers Web.

Written By: Marcus Peterson

]]> http://learnaboutasthma.org/the_four_major_types_of_air_filters.php/feed/ 0 How Not to Kill Mould http://learnaboutasthma.org/how_not_to_kill_mold.php/ http://learnaboutasthma.org/how_not_to_kill_mold.php/#comments Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:16:24 +0000 admin http://learnaboutasthma.org/how_not_to_kill_mold.php/ How Not to Kill Mold

We hear about mold in the news all the time. It has been linked with:

* Headaches
* Sinus Infections
* Coughing
* Weakened Immune System
* Dizziness
* Skin Infections
* Ear Infections
* Cancer
* Brain Damage
* ADHD

The toxins (poisons) that the molds create are harmless to humans outdoors where concentrations are low. Indoors, concentrations go up. When the amounts are sufficiently high, the mycotoxins (mold poisons) can make you and your kids sick.

The Arab Oil Embargo of 1972 caused us to tighten up our homes to conserve energy. This has allowed mold toxins to build up even in homes with only a moderate amount of mold colonies. You often aren’t sick enough to go to the doctor when you are infected by mold. You take aspirin for your headaches and decongestants for your sinuses.

But over time these problems get worse. Minor problems with the sinuses turn into inflammatory problems.

Inflammatory problems include:
* Lupus
* Arthritis
* Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
* Blood vessel deterioration

There is a more detailed list of molds and the diseases they cause at http://www.themoldlab.com

The most common approach to killing mold is to use bleach. Unfortunately, bleach doesn’t kill mold. It just bleaches it. It takes the color out. The mold is still alive and producing its poisons but we cannot see it.

The EPA, at one point, said to use bleach to get rid of mold on glass and tile surfaces only. However, as of 2002, the EPA does not recommend the use of chlorine bleach. (http://www.epa.gov/iaq/molds/i-e-r.html)

Many chemicals that kill mold will burn people’s lungs. This is particularly true for small children. Even EPA approved mold killers do this.

Most, if not all, companies that eliminate mold use these strong chemicals that are very toxic to people with asthma (3 of 7 people according to the American Lung Association). Many people with asthma cannot reenter their own houses if they have been sprayed with commercial fungicides (mold killers). And to add insult to injury, most fungicides are not applied properly so they do not even kill the mold.

There are 100,000′s of different molds. Each causes it own problems; each has its own needs. The trick to killing mold is to know what molds you have and deny them their basic needs. This gets rid of the mold but does not poison the residents.

About the Author

For 30 years, Dr Graham has been helping people treat and prevent disease by showing them how to live in a clean environment.

Written By: Dr George W Graham

]]> http://learnaboutasthma.org/how_not_to_kill_mold.php/feed/ 0 Air Purifiers, Are They Worth The Money? http://learnaboutasthma.org/air_purifiers_are_they_worth_the_money.php/ http://learnaboutasthma.org/air_purifiers_are_they_worth_the_money.php/#comments Thu, 17 Aug 2006 13:15:01 +0000 admin http://learnaboutasthma.org/air_purifiers_are_they_worth_the_money.php/ When you suffer from allergies or asthma, you may think it may be a good idea to purchase an air filtration system for your house. But one legitimate question would be: is it worth paying the money? Experts say that it can ease your symptoms, but that is true only if you make other changes in your environment, too.

These changes concern avoiding the carpeting, finding another place for your pets and using air conditioning during the warmer months in order to get rid of the pollens or allergens. You should as well clean the air filters, the air conditioner filters, and the duct filters every season. Another possibility is not to open your windows and to avoid staying a lot outdoors, during the period when your allergies are acute.

If you have tried all these and didn’t find adequate relief, then it may be better for you to think about using an air filter. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as well as the American Lung Association recommends air filtration for those who suffer from allergies and asthma, but not as a solution per-se. Controlling the pollution and ventilation that can cause allergies is more important; there are arguments on whether filters can give relief from asthma in a house that is clean and well ventilated. Air cleaners may be helpful in some situations and may help reducing allergy or asthma symptoms, but that air cleaning is not the one to reduce consistently the symptoms.

About The Author

Dominic is the author of this article. This article may be reproduced on websites subject to credit being given to the author, and a link to his website. If you would like more information go to http://www.airpurifiersources.com.

Written By: Dominic Ferrara

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