Exercise-induced asthma: nutritional management.

Exercise-induced asthma (EIA) refers to the transient narrowing of the airways following strenuous exercise in asthmatic and otherwise healthy individuals. Despite the heterogeneous treatment options for patients with EIA, there remains a substantial burden of unaddressed disease, even with optimal treatment. Epidemiological studies indicate that patients frequently resort to complementary and alternative therapies while being treated for asthma and other chronic health conditions.

Hydrogen sulfide as an oxygen sensor/transducer in vertebrate hypoxic vasoconstriction and hypoxic vasodilation.

How vertebrate blood vessels sense acute hypoxia and respond either by constricting (hypoxic vasoconstriction) or dilating (hypoxic vasodilation) has not been resolved. In the present study we compared the mechanical and electrical responses of select blood vessels to hypoxia and H2S, measured vascular H2S production, and evaluated the effects of inhibitors of H2S synthesis and addition of the H2S precursor, cysteine, on hypoxic vasoconstriction and hypoxic vasodilation. We found that: (1) in all vertebrate vessels examined to date, hypoxia and H2S produce temporally and quantitatively identical responses even though the responses vary from constriction (lamprey dorsal aorta; lDA), to dilation (rat aorta; rA), to multi-phasic (rat and bovine pulmonary arteries; rPA and bPA, respectively).

Hydrogen sulfide mediates hypoxia-induced relaxation of trout urinary bladder smooth muscle.

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is a recently identified gasotransmitter that may mediate hypoxic responses in vascular smooth muscle. H2S also appears to be a signaling molecule in mammalian non-vascular smooth muscle, but its existence and function in non-mammalian non-vascular smooth muscle have not been examined. In the present study we examined H2S production and its physiological effects in urinary bladder from steelhead and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and evaluated the relationship between H2S and hypoxia.