Background: Asthma is a multifactorial disease and its severity varies with the inflammatory grade. There are conflicting reports about the roles of trace elements in asthma. This study examined the effects of zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), and selenium (Se) concentrations in sera of patients with allergic asthma attending Ghaem Hospital, Mashhad, Iran. Methods: Forty-nine patients, aged 10 to 50 y...

Some studies indicate that children born to younger mothers are at a higher risk of wheezing and asthma.  To investigate the maternal age associated with asthma in children, a case-control study on 310 asthmatic and 310 non-asthmatic children aged 3 to 4 years was organized during a one-year period.  A questionnaire was used to obtain information about the child’s personal susceptibility factor...

Objective: Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the respiratory airways distinguished by edema and infiltration of inflammatory immune cells. To test our hypothesis about the anti-inflammatory effect of saffron, we examined effects of Crocus sativus (C. sativus) extract as a prophylactic anti-inflammatory agent in sensitized rats. Materials and Methods: To induce experimental asthma, rat...

Background: Asthma is the most common chronic disease of childhood. Exposure to allergens plays an important role in asthma. Recently, cockroach has attracted attentions as an important allergen. Objective: To evaluate cockroach allergy in Iranian children with asthma. Methods: 100 children with asthma were studied. After determination of asthma severity, serum total IgE and blood eosinophils w...

Background: In addition to cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of asthma, mounting evidences demonstrate that single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in asthma relevant genes have a role in conferring susceptibility to the disease. CHI3L1 is secreted from macrophages, neutrophils, and airway epithelial cells through an IL-13 related mechanism and contributes to tissue ...

Background Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease in respiratory system and obesity is another inflammatory disease which incidence rate is increasing. Although, many studies have been conducted on severity of asthma and its relationship with obesity, but different results have been obtained. This study aimed to determine a relationship between asthma severity, Body Mass Index (BMI) and pulmo...

Background and Aims: Asthma is a complicated chronic inflammatory disease associated with pulmonary inflammation, severe immune responses of the respiratory tract, and change or destruction in the respiratory tract structure. Several factors, especially genetic and environmental factors, contribute to the pathogenesis of asthma. Interlukin (IL)-13 is considered the most important inflammatory m...

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the source is credited. DOI 10.3109/17453671003667192 Börje Walldius was born in southern Sweden in 1913, but spent most of his professional life in Stockholm where he died in 1998. He publis...