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The following was originally published at healthcentral.com/asthma.  Wood fires have been used for heating and cooking for most of history. Even today they continue to be used, sometimes for fun and entertainment, although often as a much needed source of heating and cooking. The problem, though, lies in the smoke created, which has now been linked to asthma and COPD. What is wood smoke?   Well, most poeple know what wood smoke is.  Still, t he technical name for wood smoke is biomass smoke.  Biomass is fuel created from living or recently living organisms, such as trees, plants, animal dung, charcoal and coal. Biomass smoke comes from wood stoves, fireplaces, campfires, wildfires, and leaf burning.  It also comes from cigarettes and cigars. Biomass contains carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Biomass burning, called combustion, results in a series of chemical reactions that turn carbon, hydrogen and oxygen into carbon dioxide, water and heat. However, due to incomplet...

During the course of the past ten years many smaller hospitals have either closed their doors or merged with larger hospitals. There are various reasons for this, but I think one of the main reasons is  corporate cronyism . It's always existed to a certain degree, but it has been put on steroids since during the Obama administration. This is not a criticism of Obama, it's just an observation. Okay, so money has always played a significant role in politics. You will always have corporations that make a lot of money, everybody always wants more (I don't care who you are) and the lure of making more money is always seductive.  Now, I don't have a problem with corporations making lots of money, and I never will.  I believe there is plenty of money to go around, enough so that every person, every corporation, in the world could be rich if they made the effort; if they sacrificed their time, and took the risks.  I mean, that's what American Exceptionalism is all about....

So large hospital groups have succeeded in beating out the competition by supporting big government, which in turn creates laws that create regulations that smaller hospitals cannot afford. This, in turn, causes their competitors to either close their doors, or they have no choice but to merge with the larger groups. This, in turn, has resulted in higher healthcare costs. This is contrary to the promise that healthcare costs would go down under Obamacare. Yet Obamacare has made it easier to merge, and easier to charge high prices. In fact, Obamacare almost encourages it through incentives. Check out here some quotes from Forbes.com. This has had a great impact on the healthcare industry.  This is how larger hospitals have beat out their competition -- gobbled up the competition -- without even having a better product, or regardless of having a better product. Here's a quote from Forbes: The average day spent in a U.S. hospital costs five times as much as it does in other industrial...

Originally published at healthcentral.com/copd Researchers are working overtime to learn what causes COPD. The Fetal Origins Hypothesis suggests it all begins in the uterus as the fetus adjusts to its environment. Such adjustments may predispose the fetus to chronic diseases like asthma and COPD later in life.   During the 1950s and 1960s, physicians thought the placenta was a natural barrier that protected unborn babies from the mother’s environment; that it protected the fetus from anything bad ingested or inhaled; that it only allowed good substances, such as essential nutrients, to get to the fetus. It was based on this old theory that caused physicians, or at least many of them, to remain indifferent to a mother’s nutritional status.  If anything, it was prefered they didn’t gain too much weight. Physicians also remained unconcerned about mothers having a few drinks or inhaling cigarette smoke. In fact, during the 1960s, about half of expectant mothers reported smoking ci...

The following was originally published at healthcentral.com/copd.  Studies suggest that about 95% of people who develop COPD are current or former cigarette smokers. Stil l, evidence suggests that smoking is not the only risk factor, and that people who have never smoked may still develop COPD. Here are ten risk factors for developing COPD. 1   Smoking Cigarettes .   It’s not so much the nicotine, but the 5,000 chemicals in cigarette smoke that cause all the harmful effects of smoking, including the destruction of lung tissue and the loss of lung function. In fact, studies show smoking is harmful to the smoker and anyone else who happens to inhale it -- including children, and even fetuses. 2    Genetics .  I previously discussed the  impact of genetics on COPD .  The general idea is that repeated exposure to certain substances in the air, such as chemicals in cigarette smoke, may cause airway changes that result in COPD. Certain genes may a...

Originally published at healtahcentral.com/asthma Researchers are working overtime in their quest to find better treatment options for asthmatics. Here are some of the latest discoveries. We think you'll be impressed! Key protein discovered .  Researchers at the University of Leipzig believe they found a “key molecule” responsible for allergic asthma. The molecule is called protein syndecan-4, and is found in the cell membrane of antigen presenting cells. The hope is further research in this regard will lead to better medicines or cures for allergies and asthma.   Source:   Science Daily: Allergic Asthma: Key Molecule Identified Root cause of asthma discovered . Using mouse models of asthma and human airway tissue, researchers at Cardiff University believe the calcium sensing receptor (CaSR) is the "potential root cause of asthma."   It was already known that  asthma triggers  release chemicals that activate sensory neuro airways leading to airway twitchine...

Originally published at healthcentral.com/asthma Many childhood asthmatics seem to get better with age.  Sometimes asthma attacks come less often, or are less severe.  In some cases asthma may seem to go away altogether, or to go into remission.  Here are seven reasons to explain this phenomenon. 1   Testosterone .  Asthma in boys often improves during teenage years. One theory for this suggests this may be due to an increase in testosterone levels. Testosterone (or one of its metabolites) may have an  influence over the abnormal immune response that causes asthma . 2   Communication . Because you cannot see how other people feel, some parents have a hard time recognizing asthma in children. Making this worse, children are often poor communicators of how they feel.  As they grow older and mature, children become better communicators, and this makes asthma easier to both diagnose and treat.   3   Medicine . For liability reasons, few stud...

The following post was written by me and published at healthcentral.com/copd on November 4, 2015 Have COPD? Here's 6 Things To Keep Handy Having a chronic disease like COPD means being prepared for that inevitable flare-up. This requires having easy access to all the tools needed to help you breathe better. Here are six things to keep handy at all times. 1.   Controller Medicines .  These are all the medications meant to keep you breathing well.  They usually include a combination of inhalers and nebulizer medications. They should be kept in a location that is easy for you to access, such as your medicine cabinet, or even your bedside or kitchen table. You must make sure you take these every day exactly as prescribed.  Not only are these meant to prevent flare-ups, they may also make inevitable flare-ups less severe and easier to control.   2.   Oxygen equipment .  If you have oxygen at home, and you wear it all the time, you probably don’t have to wor...