Study protocol for a national cohort of adults focused on respiratory health: the American Lung Association Lung Health Cohort (ALA-LHC) Study.

Introduction: The current framework for investigating respiratory diseases is based on defining lung health as the absence of lung disease. In order to develop a comprehensive approach to prevent the development of lung disease, there is a need to evaluate the full spectrum of lung health spanning from ideal to impaired lung health. The American Lung Association (ALA) Lung Health Cohort is a new, population-based, cohort study focused primarily on characterising lung health in members of the millennial generation without diagnosed severe respiratory disease.

Agricultural Drought Monitoring via the Assimilation of SMAP Soil Moisture Retrievals Into a Global Soil Water Balance Model.

From an agricultural perspective, drought refers to an unusual deficiency of plant available water in the root-zone of the soil profile. This paper focuses on evaluating the benefit of assimilating soil moisture retrievals from the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission into the USDA-FAS Palmer model for agricultural drought monitoring. This will be done by examining the standardized soil moisture anomaly index.

Sulforaphane improves the bronchoprotective response in asthmatics through Nrf2-mediated gene pathways.

Background: It is widely recognized that deep inspiration (DI), either before methacholine (MCh) challenge (Bronchoprotection, BP) or after MCh challenge (Bronchodilation, BD) protects against this challenge in healthy individuals, but not in asthmatics. Sulforaphane, a dietary antioxidant and antiinflammatory phytochemical derived from broccoli, may affect the pulmonary bronchoconstrictor responses to MCh and the responses to DI in asthmatic patients.

Methods: Forty-five moderate asthmatics were administered sulforaphane (100 μmol daily for 14 days), BP, BD, lung volumes by body-plethsmography, and airway morphology by computed tomography (CT) were measured pre- and post sulforaphane consumption.

Forced expiratory capnography and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

This report proposes a potentially sensitive and simple physiological method to detect early changes and to follow disease progression in obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) based upon the usual pulmonary function test. Pulmonary function testing is a simple, although relatively insensitive, method to detect and follow COPD. As a proof-of-concept, we have examined the slope of the plateau for carbon dioxide during forced expiratory capnography in healthy (n = 10) and COPD subjects (n = 10).

Antioxidant components of naturally-occurring oils exhibit marked anti-inflammatory activity in epithelial cells of the human upper respiratory system.

Background: The upper respiratory tract functions to protect lower respiratory structures from chemical and biological agents in inspired air. Cellular oxidative stress leading to acute and chronic inflammation contributes to the resultant pathology in many of these exposures and is typical of allergic disease, chronic sinusitis, pollutant exposure, and bacterial and viral infections. Little is known about the effective means by which topical treatment of the nose can strengthen its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory defenses.

The effects of the nasal antihistamines olopatadine and azelastine in nasal allergen provocation.

Background: Olopatadine, an antihistamine used in allergic conjunctivitis, is under development as a nasal preparation for the treatment of allergic rhinitis.

Objectives: To evaluate the efficacy of olopatadine in suppressing symptoms and biomarkers of the immediate reaction induced by nasal allergen provocation and to compare olopatadine with azelastine in the same model.

Methods: The study was approved by the Johns Hopkins University institutional review board, and all subjects gave written consent.