occupational asthma is defined as “a disease of variable airflow limitations and/or airway hyper-responsiveness due to causes and conditions attributable to a particular occupational environment and not stimuli that are being encountered outside the workplace.” an analysis of general population-based studies published up to 2007 showed that 17.6% of all adultonset asthma is due to workplace exp...

Airway responsiveness to histamine in man may be determined by the smooth muscle sensitivity to histamine or to the interaction between vagal nerve input and smooth muscle sensitivity. We have compared in vivo responsiveness to histamine with in vitro smooth muscle sensitivity to histamine in 20 non-asthmatic patients and one asthmatic patient undergoing thoracic surgery. Histamine responsivene...

Asthma, a common disorder that affects >250 million people worldwide, is defined by exaggerated bronchoconstriction to inflammatory mediators including acetylcholine (ACh), bradykinin and histamine-also termed airway hyper-responsiveness. Nearly 10% of people with asthma have severe, treatment-resistant disease, which is frequently associated with immunoglobulin-E sensitization to ubiquitous fu...

The effect of deep inspiration (DI) on airway responsiveness differs in asthmatic and normal human subjects. The mechanism for the effects of DI on airway responsiveness in vivo has not been identified. To elucidate potential mechanisms, we compared the effects of DI imposed before or during induced bronchoconstriction on the airway response to methacholine (MCh) in rabbits. The changes in airw...

Children born before term often have reduced lung function, but the effects of preterm birth alone are difficult to determine owing to iatrogenic factors such as mechanical ventilation. Our objective was to determine the effects of preterm birth alone on airway resistance, airway reactivity, and ventilatory heterogeneity as an index of intrapulmonary gas mixing. Preterm birth was induced in she...

Lofgren, Jennifer L. S., Melissa R. Mazan, Edward P. Ingenito, Kara Lascola, Molly Seavey, Ashley Walsh, and Andrew M. Hoffman. Restrained whole body plethysmography for measure of strain-specific and allergen-induced airway responsiveness in conscious mice. J Appl Physiol 101: 1495–1505, 2006. First published July 20, 2006; doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.00464.2006.—The mouse is the most extensively...

Cysteinyl leukotrienes (CysLTs) exert potent proinflammatory actions and contribute to many of the symptoms of asthma. Using a model of allergic sensitization and airway challenge with Aspergillus fumigatus (Af), we have found that Th2-type inflammation and airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) to methacholine (MCh) were associated with increased LTD(4) responsiveness in mice. To explore the importa...

Asthma is traditionally defined as a chronic, multisystem, multicellular disease characterized by bronchial hyper-responsiveness (BHR) and lung inflammation. In this illness is particularly involving the airway epithelium as the place where the inflammation begins, develops and often returns through airway remodelling. In specific way there is also an evolving awareness of the active participat...

Local airway water loss is the main physiological trigger for exercise-induced bronchoconstriction (EIB). Our aim was to investigate the effects of whole body water loss on airway responsiveness and pulmonary function in athletes with mild asthma and/or EIB. Ten recreational athletes with a medical diagnosis of mild asthma and/or EIB completed a randomized, crossover study. Pulmonary function t...

Rat and monkey are species that are used in models of human airway hyperresponsiveness. However, the wall structures of rat and monkey airways are different from each other, with that of the monkey more closely resembling that of humans. We hypothesized that differences in wall structure would explain differences in airway responsiveness. Using videomicrometry, we measured airway luminal area i...