Search Results for: asthma

The doctor’s advice sounds clear enough – if pets make you wheeze and sneeze, stay away. But anyone with animal allergies knows life isn’t always so simple. Some people whose eyes are aflame after five minutes near a collie can live with a poodle without ever cracking a tissue box. Others find that regularly bathing [...]

Air pollution irritates this lung condition. But could smog cause asthma? In June of 2005, the smog hanging over downtown Toronto was so thick you couldn’t see the CN Tower from the mid-town restaurant where Sara La Rocque was waiting tables at an outdoor patio. That was when Sara, a 21-year-old creative writing student, quit [...]

Asthmatics are living half lives, shunning exercise, medications and coughing their way through the night. It doesn’t have to be this way. Adrienne Smith has been battling with her asthma since she was diagnosed at the age of 13. For Smith, high school gym class was particulary difficult: she would often get a crushing feeling [...]

Much work is being done to educate North Americans about controlling asthma, and hospital admissions are down. But what remains consistently unimproved is the so-called asthma spike – the day on which many parents will show up at the hospital with school-age children in the throes of asthma attacks. Using data accumulated since 1990, scientists [...]

The town of Wolfville, Nova Scotia grabbed headlines last fall when it banned smoking in cars that are carrying children under the age of 18. Today, many Canadians are talking about this burning issue, and The Lung Association has launched a campaign to lobby for smoke-free family cars in every province and territory. To date, [...]

Following the decision by Air Canada to join WestJet in allowing pets to travel in airplane cabins, The Lung Association has launched an online campaign calling on federal politicians to protect the health and safety of airline passengers and crew who may suffer from severe allergies to pet dander or have asthma or chronic obstructive [...]

University of Calgary scientists probing the common cold and its effect on asthma have made some important discoveries. Recent research led by David Proud, a professor in the faculty of medicine, is the first to look at how every single gene in our bodies responds when infected with a cold virus, the most common of [...]

In winter, the pollen allergic breathe sighs of relief. Not so those who have asthma triggered by cold air, exercise or indoor allergens. But winter need not be a cruel season for the lungs. How cold air affects asthma A winter wind whips your face. What do you do? Probably squint and tear up because [...]

Sean Callahan had just checked in at a WestJet counter for a 3.5-hour flight from St. John’s, Newfoundland to Toronto, when he turned to see a young woman behind him, carrying a cat carrier. Callahan, whose severe allergy to cat dander triggers his asthma, was shocked to learn that she and her feline friend were [...]

Third-hand smoke is a new name for an old problem: smoke particles that linger on hair, skin, clothes, furniture, carpet and toys, long after the smoker has butted out. Third-hand smoke contains the same toxic chemicals – such as lead and arsenic – as second-hand smoke. Third-hand smoke can harm infants and babies Even if [...]