THURSDAY, May 16 (HealthDay News) -- For those who aren't born with long, fluttery eyelashes, cosmetic extensions can help achieve that often sought-after look. But eye experts warn that the adhesives used to apply these eyelash extensions can cause allergies and infections.

The American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) warns that among the potential dangers associated with cosmetic eyelash extensions and the adhesives used to apply them are infections of the cornea and eyelid, permanent or temporary loss of eyelashes, and eyelid swelling.

The academy said that a recent Consumer Reports article details the cases of several patients who suffered infections and allergic reactions to formaldehyde-based adhesives used with eyelash extensions.

The AAO said consumers should use caution if they're considering eyelash extensions and offered the following advice:

• Only go to an aesthetician who is certified and working at a reputable business.
• Ensure that adequate hand washing and proper hygiene is practiced by the aesthetician.
• Ask about the eyelash adhesive ingredients before getting the extensions applied.

People who develop an infection, allergic reaction or other irritation after using eyelash extensions or other eye products should immediately seek medical attention from an ophthalmologist -- a doctor who specializes in the treatment of eye conditions, the experts noted in an AAO news release.

More information

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration offers tips for the safe use of eye cosmetics.

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THURSDAY, May 16 (HealthDay News) -- Drop by for a visit or share the drive -- but please, no smoking.

That's the message the vast majority of Americans send to the smokers within their social circle, a new study finds.

Four out of five adults now have smoke-free rules in their homes, while about three out of four have enacted the same ban in their cars, according to the national survey from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Getting tough on smoking is always a good idea, experts say.

"We have made tremendous progress in the last 15 years protecting people in public spaces from secondhand smoke," Dr. Tim McAfee, director of the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health, said in an agency news release. "The good news is that people are applying the same protection in their homes and vehicles."

Whether or not you've banned smoking inside the home seems to depend on your smoking status, the CDC study found. While 89 percent of non-smokers say they have a smoke-free policy at home, only 48 percent of smokers have a similar rule. When it comes to cars or other vehicles, 85 percent of non-smokers do not allow smoking, compared to just 27 percent of smokers, the research showed.

Many people may be taking their cue from local legislation, the CDC said. The agency noted that most of the people who've established their own smoke-free rules live in states with longstanding tobacco-control programs and comprehensive smoking bans.

Nevertheless, there's more work to be done, McAfee said. "Millions of non-smokers, many of whom are children, remain exposed to secondhand smoke in these environments," he said.

According to the CDC, nearly 11 million non-smokers remain exposed to secondhand smoke at home and almost 17 million non-smokers are exposed in cars.

The non-smokers most affected by secondhand smoke are men, younger adults, blacks and those with less education. States with the fewest smoking bans or tobacco-control programs had the most adult smokers, the study found.

The danger to nonsmokers' health from stray cigarette smoke is real. Adults exposed to secondhand smoke can develop heart disease and lung cancer, the CDC said. For children, secondhand smoke increases the risk for more severe and frequent asthma attacks, acute respiratory infections, ear infections and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), the agency said.

Exposure to secondhand smoke claims the lives of an estimated 50,000 people in the United States each year. Because of that, the U.S. Surgeon General advises 100 percent smoke-free policies that protect non-smokers from secondhand smoke.

"While almost half of all U.S. residents are protected by 100 percent smoke-free policies in worksites, restaurants and bars, overall there are still an estimated 88 million non-smoking Americans over the age of 3 who are exposed to secondhand smoke," study lead author Brian King, an epidemiologist in the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health, said in the news release. "It's important to educate people on the dangers of secondhand smoke exposure and how smoke-free homes and vehicles can reduce that exposure."

The study appears in the May issue of the CDC journal Preventing Chronic Disease.

More information

The American Cancer Society provides more information on secondhand smoke.

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THURSDAY, May 16 (HealthDay News) -- Flu-causing H1N1 virus has been discovered in marine animals -- specifically seals -- for the first time.

After the human H1N1 influenza pandemic began in 2009, researchers from the University of California, Davis, detected the virus in free-ranging northern elephant seals off the central California coastline.

"We thought we might find influenza viruses, which have been found before in marine mammals, but we did not expect to find pandemic H1N1," study lead author Tracey Goldstein, an associate professor with the university's One Health Institute and Wildlife Health Center, said in a university news release. "This shows influenza viruses can move among species."

The H1N1 virus originated in pigs, and the resulting infection was known as swine flu.

"The study of influenza virus infections in unusual hosts, such as elephant seals, is likely to provide us with clues to understand the ability of influenza virus to jump from one host to another and initiate pandemics," Adolfo Garcia-Sastre, director of the Global Health and Emerging Pathogens Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York City, said in the news release.

The new findings were published May 15 in the journal PLoS ONE.

In conducting the study, the researchers tested nasal swabs from more than 900 marine mammals from 10 different species off the Pacific Coast from Alaska to California between 2009 and 2011.

The H1N1 virus was identified in two northern elephant seals. Despite being infected with the virus, neither seal had any symptoms. Antibodies to the virus also were detected in 28 other elephant seals, suggesting exposure to the virus was widespread.

"H1N1 was circulating in humans in 2009," Goldstein said. "The seals on land in early 2010 tested negative before they went to sea, but when they returned from sea in spring 2010, they tested positive. So the question is: Where did it come from?"

The infected seals were tracked by satellite. The researchers said exposure to H1N1 likely occurred while the seals were at sea foraging in the northeast Pacific Ocean off the continental shelf.

Since marine animals could be infected with H1N1 without showing any signs that they are sick, the researchers said their findings are particularly important for people who work with or handle marine animals. Taking precautions, such as wearing gloves, when working with these animals can help prevent the spread of disease both to and from humans, Goldstein said.

Today, the World Health Organization reports that H1N1 is under control and behaves as a seasonal virus.

More information

Visit the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to learn more about H1N1.

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The American College of Sports Medicine offers these suggestions:

• Talk to an allergist before starting an exercise program.
• Take all medications for allergies and asthma as prescribed by your doctor.
• Breathe through the nose while you exercise.
• Exercise indoors when outdoor pollen counts are high. Keep windows and doors closed, and exercise on a mat instead of on carpeting.
• Keep rescue medications on hand, don't exercise if symptoms are flaring, and take extra time to warm up and cool down.

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TUESDAY, May 14 (HealthDay News) -- Inhaling ultrafine particles from so-called "nanomaterials" -- which are used in a growing number of household and commercial products, including sunscreens, ink in copy machines and lightweight sporting equipment -- can cause lung inflammation and damage, a team of U.S. scientists says.

The findings of the study -- which looked at the two most common types of engineered nanomaterials -- are important because of the large quantities of nanomaterials being used in industry, electronics and medicine, the researchers said.

Nanomaterials are used to make product stronger and more flexible.

Earlier studies had found that breathing nanomaterials could harm the lungs, but this study is believed to be the first in which different laboratories across the country produced similar results regarding the risk.

The findings should help in creating policy for the safe development of nanotechnology, according to the authors of the study, which was published online recently in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

"This research provides further confirmation that nanomaterials have the potential to cause inflammation and injury to the lungs," Kent Pinkerton, a study senior author and the director of the Center for Health and the Environment at the University of California, Davis, said in a university news release. "Although small amounts of these materials in the lungs do not appear to produce injury, we still must remain vigilant in using care in the diverse applications of these materials in consumer products and foods."

More information

The American Lung Association explains how to protect your lungs.

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TUESDAY, May 14 (HealthDay News) -- People who opt for nonsmoking rooms in hotels with a partial smoking ban are not fully protected from harmful exposure to so-called "thirdhand" smoke, according to a new study.

Smoking in hotels leaves a trail of tobacco pollution in the air and on surfaces in both smoking and nonsmoking rooms, researchers Georg Matt and colleagues at San Diego State University found. New hotels should enforce total smoking bans to protect their guests and employees, said the study authors, who also advised people to avoid hotels that allow smoking in designated areas.

"Our findings demonstrate that some nonsmoking guest rooms in smoking hotels are as polluted with [third-hand smoke] as are some smoking rooms," the researchers wrote. "Moreover, nonsmoking guests staying in smoking rooms may be exposed to tobacco smoke pollutants at levels found among nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke."

The study involved 40 budget-priced to mid-range hotels in San Diego. Of these hotels, 10 had complete smoking bans. Thirty hotels had partial smoking bans with designated nonsmoking rooms. The findings appeared online May 13 in the journal Tobacco Control.

The researchers examined the hotel rooms' surfaces and air quality for evidence of nicotine and 3EP, a marker of tobacco smoke. Urine and finger wipe samples were also taken from nonsmokers who spent the night at any of the hotels to assess their exposure to nicotine and a carcinogen found in tobacco smoke known as NKK.

Nonsmoking rooms in hotels with partial smoking bans had evidence of air pollution. These designated nonsmoking rooms had levels of surface nicotine that were more than twice as high as rooms in hotels with total smoking bans, according to a journal news release.

These nonsmoking rooms had air levels of 3EP that were more than seven times as high as the rooms in hotels that did not permit any smoking.

In rooms designated as smoking areas, the researchers found that surface and air nicotine levels were 35 and 22 times higher than the rooms in hotels that had total smoking bans. The air nicotine levels in smoking rooms were also much higher than nonsmoking rooms.

Even the nonsmoking rooms of hotels with partial smoking bans had air nicotine levels that were 40 percent higher than in rooms in hotels with total smoking bans.

The effects of smoking were not confined to the hotel rooms. The study also showed that hallway surfaces outside of smoking rooms had higher nicotine levels than the surfaces outside nonsmoking rooms.

The samples taken from nonsmokers who stayed in hotels with partial smoking bans had higher levels of nicotine and NKK than those staying in nonsmoking hotels.

"Guests who wish to protect themselves from exposure to tobacco smoke should avoid hotels that permit smoking and instead stay in completely smoke-free hotels," the researchers wrote.

More information

Visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to learn more about tobacco use and smoke-free policies.

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TUESDAY, May 14 (HealthDay News) -- Living near a major road may result in reduced kidney function, which could, in turn, increase people's risk for heart attack and stroke, according to a new study.

The study, published online May 13 in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, involved more than 1,100 adults who were admitted to a Boston-area hospital after suffering a stroke between 1999 and 2004. Half of the participants lived within three-fifths of a mile of a major road. The rest lived up to six miles away.

Each patient underwent two tests to measure how well their kidneys were working. First, a blood test assessed their level of creatinine, a byproduct of muscle metabolism. Their glomerular filtration rate, which shows how well creatinine is filtered out of the body by the kidneys, also was analyzed. A low filtration rate indicates worse kidney function.

Patients who lived closest to a busy road had the lowest glomerular filtration rate, after their age, sex, race, smoking status, and previous treatment for heart disease or other underlying conditions were taken into account, according to a journal news release.

Although the study tied living near heavy traffic to possible harm to kidney function, it did not establish a cause-and-effect relationship.

"If causal, these results imply that exposures associated with living near a major roadway contribute to reduced renal function, an important risk factor for cardiovascular events," wrote Dr. Murray Mittleman, of the cardiovascular epidemiology research unit at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and colleagues.

Pollution caused by traffic can lead to the accumulation of arterial plaque and changes to peripheral arteries, the researchers said. The kidneys are very susceptible to the build-up of arterial plaque, they added. Impaired kidney function is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Therefore, the researchers suggested, living near a roadway with heavy traffic could contribute to negative effects of air pollution on heart health.

The authors estimated that living very close to a major road was associated with a 4 percent higher rate of cardiovascular death and a 1 percent greater risk of death from any cause compared to the risk of people living at least a few miles away.

"There is growing evidence that living near major roadways contributes to the incidence of vascular disease, and adverse prognosis among patients with prevalent cardiovascular disease," the researchers wrote.

More information

The World Health Organization has more about air quality and health.

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WEDNESDAY, May 8 (HealthDay News) -- Many pre-term babies suffer recurrent episodes of wheezing. Now, researchers say a common infection is a likely culprit and they may be able to prevent the breathing problems.

Wheezing episodes in late pre-term babies often are caused by infection with the respiratory synctial virus (RSV), the researchers said. And they've found that injections of an expensive RSV medication can prevent the virus -- and the wheezing.

A study of more than 400 babies born late pre-term (between 33 and 35 weeks' gestation) found that days with wheezing dropped by more than 60 percent among those who received injections of palivizumab during RSV season. The effect lasted even after treatment ended.

"In pre-term babies, RSV illnesses seem to be a risk factor for wheezing, and this treatment reduced that risk," said Dr. Robert Lemanske Jr., a professor of pediatrics and medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, in Madison. Lemanske wrote an editorial accompanying the new study, which was published May 9 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

RSV is a global health threat in the first year of life and the second leading cause of death after malaria, said study lead author Dr. Louis Bont, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands.

"The risk of hospitalization for RSV bronchiolitis in otherwise healthy late pre-term [babies] is 5 percent," Bont said. "For other pre-terms, it is higher. About half of all otherwise healthy late pre-terms develop wheezing illness."

RSV-related wheezing reduces quality of life, and it has been linked to the development of asthma, Bont said. It's not yet clear if using palivizumab to prevent RSV will lower rates of asthma, he added.

RSV season lasts about four to five months during the fall, winter or spring, but the exact timing in the United States varies by region, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There is no vaccine for the virus, which causes only mild symptoms in adults and older children.

The study was funded by Abbott Laboratories and the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development. Abbott markets palivizumab in some foreign countries.

The researchers set out to determine if RSV was the cause of wheezing illness during the first year of life. Studying 429 babies in the Netherlands, they randomly assigned half to receive a monthly injection of palivizumab during RSV season. The other half received a placebo drug.

The babies in the treatment group had 61 percent fewer days of wheezing during the first year of life. This led the researchers to conclude that RSV is a likely contributor to wheezing illness in this group of children.

The study also found that 21 percent of the babies who received no treatment had recurrent wheezing, compared to 11 percent in those receiving palivizumab. The number of infants who needed medication to treat their wheezing was also less in the palivizumab group, according to the study.

Other than redness and swelling at the injection site, the drug is very well tolerated, Bont said.

The reduction in wheezing comes at a price, however. A season's treatment would likely reach about $10,000 in the United States, Bont said, adding that cost varies from country to country. A child's weight, which determines dosage, also affects the cost of treatment.

"Society needs to define whether its cost-effectiveness is acceptable," Bont said. He said palivizumab should be a standard preventive treatment for premature infants during RSV season.

Lemanske agreed that this is a very expensive intervention. "But if wheezing episodes in pre-term infants are associated with significant [illnesses], then preventing RSV could translate into dollars and cents too," he said. "Whether this will reduce disease risk down the road remains to be seen."

More information

Learn more about respiratory synctial virus (RSV) from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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WEDNESDAY, May 8 (HealthDay News) -- Women who come down with the flu during pregnancy may be at increased risk of having a child who develops bipolar disorder, a new study suggests.

The chance of a child eventually developing the mental health disorder was nearly four times higher when comparing mothers-to-be who had the flu to those who didn't, the researchers reported.

"We don't fully understand this," said study co-author Dr. Alan Brown. "The best guess is it's an inflammatory response. It could also be a result of fever," he noted.

"Mothers should stay away from people who have the flu," said Brown, a professor of clinical psychiatry and clinical epidemiology at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City.

However, he added, regarding the new findings, "women should not be greatly concerned, because a fourfold increase is pretty high from an epidemiological standpoint, but still the vast majority of the offspring did not get bipolar disorder."

Brown explained that "the risk of bipolar disorder in the population is about 1 percent, so if it's increased fourfold that would make it a 4 percent risk." Moreover, the researchers only looked at one risk factor for bipolar disorder, not all risk factors, which could skew these results, he noted.

The report was published in the May 8 online edition of JAMA Psychiatry.

Bipolar disorder, also called manic-depressive illness, causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels and the ability to carry out routine tasks. Bipolar disorder can be treated, and people with this illness can lead full and productive lives, according to the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health.

The condition often develops in the late teens or early adult years. Some people have their first symptoms during childhood, while others may develop symptoms as adults, the agency noted.

For the study, researchers at Columbia University and Kaiser Permanente identified cases of bipolar disorder by database linkages of a Northern California health plan and a county health care system, along with data from a mailed survey.

Participants were mothers who gave birth between 1959 and 1966 and their offspring. Researchers found 92 cases of bipolar disorder and compared them with 722 people matched in terms of occurrence of maternal influenza during pregnancy.

While the new study found an association of pregnant women getting the flu and a higher risk of bipolar disorder in their offspring, it didn't establish a cause-and-effect relationship.

"There is no understanding of the causal factors of this," said Dr. Alan Manevitz, a clinical psychiatrist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. He was not involved with the study.

"Pregnancy itself puts extra stress on women in general," he pointed out. "Pregnancy also affects the immune system and increases the risk of getting the flu."

Flu during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage, premature birth and low birth weight infants, Manevitz said.

Pregnant women should get a flu shot, both Manevitz and Brown suggested.

Other studies have shown a similar association between flu during pregnancy and the child's risk for autism and schizophrenia -- now there is this association with bipolar disorder, Manevitz said. "This doesn't give us any causal connection," he emphasized.

More information

To learn more about bipolar disorder, visit the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health.

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TUESDAY, May 7 (HealthDay News) -- Vitamin C may help prevent lung problems in babies born to mothers who smoke during pregnancy, according to a small new study.

Pregnant women are advised not to smoke because it can harm the baby's lungs and lead to problems such as wheezing and asthma. But if a pregnant woman can't quit smoking, taking vitamin C may help protect their baby's lungs, researchers found.

The study included 159 women who were less than 22 weeks pregnant and unable to quit smoking. They were randomly assigned to take either one 500-milligram capsule of vitamin C or a placebo each day for the remainder of their pregnancy.

Forty-eight hours after birth, babies born to women who took vitamin C had significantly better lung function than those whose mothers took the placebo. During their first year, wheezing was reported in 21 percent of infants whose mothers took vitamin C and in 40 percent of infants whose mothers took the placebo. The rate among infants born to nonsmokers was 27 percent.

The researchers also found that 22 percent of infants in the placebo group needed medication for wheezing, compared with 13 percent of those in the vitamin C group and 10 percent of those in the nonsmoking group.

The study was presented this week at the Pediatric Academic Societies' annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

"Vitamin C is a simple, safe and inexpensive treatment that may decrease the impact of smoking during pregnancy on childhood respiratory health," lead author Dr. Cynthia McEvoy, an associate professor of pediatrics at Oregon Health & Science University Children's Hospital, said in an American Academy of Pediatrics news release.

Because this study was presented at a medical meeting, the data and conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal. And although the study showed an association between vitamin C use and better lung function in infants, it did not prove a cause-and-effect link.

"Getting women to quit smoking during pregnancy has to be priority one, but this finding provides a way to potentially help the infants born of the roughly 50 percent of pregnant smokers who won't or can't quit smoking no matter what is tried," study co-author Dr. Eliot Spindel, a senior scientist at the Oregon National Primate Research Center at Oregon Health & Science University, said in the news release.

More information

The March of Dimes has more about the dangers of smoking during pregnancy.

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TUESDAY, May 7 (HealthDay News) -- Dustless chalk may cause allergy and asthma symptoms in students with a milk allergy, researchers have found.

Many schoolteachers use dustless chalk to keep hands and classrooms clean. But this type of chalk often contains a milk protein called casein, which can trigger respiratory problems in children with a milk allergy, according to the study, which was published in the May issue of the journal Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.

"Chalks that are labeled as being anti-dust or dustless still release small particles into the air," lead author Dr. Carlos Larramendi said in a journal news release. "Our research has found when the particles are inhaled by children with milk allergy, coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath can occur. Inhalation can also cause nasal congestion, sneezing and a runny nose."

Milk allergy affects about 300,000 children in the United States, according to the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI).

"Chalk isn't the only item in a school setting that can be troublesome to milk-allergic students. Milk proteins can also be found in glue, paper, ink and in other children's lunches," Dr. James Sublett, chairman of the ACAAI Indoor Environment Committee, said in an organization news release.

Sublett said parents of children with a milk allergy should ask to have their child seated in the back of the classroom, where they are less likely to inhale particles from dustless chalk.

"Teachers should be informed about foods and other triggers that might cause health problems for children," Sublett said. "A plan for dealing with allergy and asthma emergencies should also be shared with teachers, coaches and the school nurse. Children should also carry allergist-prescribed epinephrine, inhalers or other life-saving medications."

More information

The Nemours Foundation has more about milk allergy.

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MONDAY, May 6 (HealthDay News) -- Yearly flu vaccinations are safe for children with inflammatory bowel disease, but too few of these youngsters get a flu shot because their parents worry about possible side effects, researchers report.

Not only does vaccination help protect against the flu, it may even reduce inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) symptoms, according to the study, which was published May 6 in the journal Pediatrics.

Children with inflammatory bowel disease, which includes Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, often experience chronic abdominal pain, diarrhea, joint pain and other symptoms.

The researchers looked at all children under age 19 diagnosed with IBD in Ontario, Canada, between 1999 and 2009. They found that about 25 percent of the IBD patients received a flu shot from a doctor or nurse practitioner and that these youngsters had no increase in IBD-related health issues after being vaccinated.

The patients actually had fewer IBD-related doctor visits after receiving a flu shot.

"There is no risk of IBD flare following influenza immunization," study lead author Dr. Eric Benchimol said in a Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario news release. "In the years they were immunized, children with IBD had lower rates of IBD-related outpatient physician visits compared to years they were not immunized. This may indicate that receiving the influenza vaccine protects against having a flare of IBD, or at least prevents visits to doctors for IBD-related symptoms."

The study findings should reassure parents of children with IBD and improve flu vaccination rates among these children, the researchers said.

More information

The Nemours Foundation has more about inflammatory bowel disease and children.

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MONDAY, May 6 (HealthDay News) -- A new Swedish study suggests that parents who want to protect their infants from developing allergies should try a simple approach to introducing their children to the wide world of microbes: Just pop their pacifiers into their own mouths before giving them back to their babies.

Although that may sound disgusting or even risky to some, researchers found that the transfer of oral bacteria from adults to infants seems to help train the immune system to ignore germs that don't pose a threat.

"The immune system's purpose is to differentiate between harmless and harmful," said Dr. Ron Ferdman, a pediatric allergist at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. "If your immune system is not presented with enough microbes, it just defaults to doing harmful attacks against things that are not harmful, like food, cat dander or dust mites."

A report released last week from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics showed that the number of American children with allergies has increased dramatically in recent years: about 13 percent have skin allergies and 17 percent have respiratory allergies.

The Swedish researchers set out to learn whether very early microbial exposure during the first months of life affects allergy development. They found that children whose parents sucked on their pacifiers to clean them were less likely to have asthma, eczema and sensitivity to allergens than children whose parents did not clean the pacifiers this way.

The authors concluded that parental sucking of their baby's pacifiers may help decrease the risk of allergy caused by transfer of microbes through the parent's saliva.

For the study, published online May 6 in the journal Pediatrics, 206 pregnant women in Sweden were initially recruited as participants, and 187 of their infants were included in the research. The scientists sought families with at least one allergic parent to see if they could identify a different immune response in the children.

The researchers studied the transfer of microbes in the parents' saliva by fingerprinting bacterial DNA in 33 infants' saliva, of which 21 had parents who sucked on their pacifiers.

A total of 187 babies were followed until the child was 18 months old, and 174 were followed until they were 36 months old. The researchers chose to evaluate the children at those specific points in time because some diseases, such as eczema, develop early in life, said Dr. Bill Hesselmar, an associate professor at Queen Silvia Children's Hospital, in Gothenberg, Sweden.

Introducing solid foods into an infant's diet did not seem to affect the study results, Hesselmar said. "We found differences in the oral microbial flora already at 4 months of age, at an age when most children are still on breast milk."

Ferdman, who was not associated with the research, urged caution in interpreting the results of the study. "It's a small number of babies studied, so it's hard to generalize," he said.

He also expressed concern that results may not be widely applicable because the data were taken solely from Swedish participants, who are not a genetically diverse population.

Other researchers have expressed concern about dirty pacifiers.

Dr. Tom Glass, a professor of forensic sciences, pathology and dental medicine at Oklahoma State University, presented research at the American Society for Clinical Pathology in Boston last November that found a wide range of disease-causing bacteria, fungus and mold on children's pacifiers. They also found that pacifiers can grow a slimy coating of bacteria called a biofilm that alters the normal bacteria in the children's mouths, spurring inflammation and potentially increasing the risk of developing gastrointestinal problems or even ear infections.

The value of using a parent's saliva to clean a dirty pacifier has been known for some time, Glass said. "We have for a long time advocated that if you're at the Walmart and the baby drops the pacifier, you're better off putting the pacifier in your mouth [to clean it] because you have immunoglobulin components that fight bacteria in your saliva."

Glass expressed concern that the researchers did not identify the specific microbes transferred from parents to the pacifiers. "We don't know what the parents are actually transmitting to the child," he said.

What should parents do to help prevent allergies in their children? "Babies need to be exposed to the world, and exposure to the normal microbial environment is protective," Ferdman said. "Breast-feed for at least four to six weeks if you can. Don't smoke, and don't expose your children to secondhand smoke."

More information

Find out more about the risks and benefits of pacifiers from the American Academy of Family Physicians.

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FRIDAY, May 3 (HealthDay News) -- Molecules emitted by trees interact with man-made air pollution and create tiny particles that can get lodged in the lungs, potentially leading to lung cancer and asthma, researchers suggest.

Trees produce and emit isoprene, a molecule that protects leaves from oxygen damage and temperature fluctuation. But after isoprene is chemically altered by exposure to the sun, it reacts with pollutants called nitrogen oxides to create the tiny harmful particles, called fine particulate matter, scientists discovered. Nitrogen oxides are emitted by vehicles, aircraft, coal plants and other sources.

The study was published in a recent online issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"The work presents a dramatic new wrinkle in the arguments for reducing man-made pollutants worldwide," study author Jason Surratt, an assistant professor of environmental sciences and engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said in a university news release.

"Isoprene evolved to protect trees and plants, but because of the presence of nitrogen oxides, it is involved in producing this negative effect on health and the environment," Surratt said.

"We certainly can't cut down all the trees, but we can work on reducing these man-made emissions to cut down the production of fine particulate matter," he added.

Understanding how this process works will help researchers better predict air quality and climate effects, which can lead to improved regulations that affect the public and the environment, the study authors suggested.

"We observe nature's quirks, but we must always consider that our actions do have repercussions," Surratt said. "It's the interaction between these natural and man-made emissions that produces this air pollution, smog and fine particulate matter -- and now we know one reason for how it happens."

More information

The World Health Organization has more about air quality and health.

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The American College of Sports Medicine suggests how to help reduce the risk of an EIA attack:

• During exercise, breathe through your nose to help warm the air before it reaches your bronchial tubes.
• Avoid exercising in air that is cold and dry. Wear a face mask or scarf to help warm the air if you are exercising outdoors.
• Exercise indoors as much as possible.
• Avoid exercising outdoors when pollen and other irritants are present.
• Exercise regularly to improve fitness and lower your breathing rate.

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THURSDAY, May 2 (HealthDay News) -- The number of American children who suffer from food and skin allergies has increased dramatically in recent years, a new government report shows.

Interestingly, the prevalence of food and respiratory allergies rose with income: Children living in families that made more than 200 percent of the poverty level had the highest rates, the statistics showed.

"The prevalence of food and skin allergies both increased over the past 14 years," said report co-author LaJeana Howie, from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "This has been a consistent trend."

With food allergies, the overall rate went from 3.4 percent in 1997 to 5.1 percent in 2011. With skin allergies, the overall rate increased from 7.4 percent in 1997 to 12.5 percent in 2011. The prevalence of respiratory allergies remained constant, at 17 percent, between 1997 and 2011, although it remained the most common type of allergy affecting children, according to the NCHS report published May 2.

Pediatric allergists noted that they have been seeing the trend in their own practices.

Dr. Vivian Hernandez-Trujillo, director of allergy and immunology at Miami Children's Hospital, said: "We are certainly seeing increases in food and skin allergy in pediatric patients."

However, why these allergies are on the rise remains a mystery, another expert pointed out.

"We do not know why there has been an increase, but the theories include the 'hygiene hypothesis'; that reduced infection and reduced exposure to germs has left our immune systems 'looking for a fight' and attacking innocent proteins," explained Dr. Scott Sicherer, chief of the division of pediatric allergy and immunology at the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.

In addition, there are theories about insufficient vitamin D, unhealthy fats in the diet, the obesity epidemic and processed food, none of which have been confirmed with hard science, he noted.

These increases are real, Sicherer added. "They speak to a need for more research toward prevention and cures," he said.

"We and others are undertaking studies to try to better understand the risk factors and opportunities for prevention, while aggressively doing research on multiple means to treat those with food allergies," Sicherer said.

Racial differences did emerge in the data.

The researchers found Hispanic children had the lowest prevalence of food, skin and respiratory allergies, compared with other groups.

And black children were more likely to have skin allergies than white children (17.4 percent versus 12 percent, respectively), but less likely to have respiratory allergies (15.6 percent versus 19.1 percent, respectively).

Age also was a factor in the prevalence of skin and respiratory allergies, the report noted.

With skin allergies, the rate dropped with age: 14.2 percent of those aged 4 and younger had them, while 13.1 percent of those aged 5 to 9, and 10.9 percent of those aged 10 to 17 had them.

The opposite was true for respiratory allergies: 10.8 percent of those aged 4 and younger had them, while 17.4 percent of those aged 5 to 9 and 20.8 percent of those aged 10 to 17 had them.

Last, but not least, there was the income gap.

Among families making less than 100 percent of poverty level, 4.4 percent of those children had food allergies and 14.9 percent had respiratory allergies. Among families making more than 200 percent of poverty level, 5.4 percent of those children had food allergies and 18.3 percent had respiratory allergies.

John Lehr, CEO of Food Allergy Research & Education, added that the report "confirms what we have already known, which is that millions of children are affected by food allergies, and this potentially deadly disease is a serious and growing public health concern. The CDC's report reinforces the need for education and awareness about food allergies across the country."

More information

For more information on childhood allergies, visit the Nemours Foundation.

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WEDNESDAY, May 1 (HealthDay News) -- For people who have suffered from cellulitis of the leg, a long course of low-dose penicillin prevents the painful infection from returning, British researchers report.

Once the penicillin is stopped, however, its protective effect diminishes and the condition can flare up again, the researchers noted.

"Low-dose penicillin substantially reduces the risk of further episodes of leg cellulitis in those who have had two or more previous episodes," said lead researcher Hywel Williams, a professor of dermato-epidemiology at the University of Nottingham.

"The penicillin reduced recurrences from 37 percent in the group taking placebo to 22 percent in those taking penicillin," Williams said. "But this effect only occurred in the period that folks took the penicillin. When they stopped the 12 months of penicillin, the protective effect wore off."

Cellulitis is a common infection of the skin and deep underlying tissues. The two most common causes are Staphylococcus (staph) bacteria and group A strep. The bacteria enter the body through an injury such as a bruise, burn, surgical cut or wound, as well as through athlete's foot.

Symptoms can include fever and chills, swollen glands or lymph nodes, and a rash with painful, red, tender skin. In addition, the skin may blister and scab over.

The usual treatment is antibiotics, but the condition commonly returns when treatment is stopped.

Doctors and their patients now have reliable information on a possible way of reducing recurrences of this disabling and painful recurrent disease, Williams said.

"We now know for the first time that low-dose penicillin works, but we don't know how long it should be taken for and whether giving long-term antibiotics may cause resistance problems in the community in the long term, or whether it should be given for people with a first episode of cellulitis or just those with two or more previous episodes," he said.

The report was published in the May 2 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

One expert doesn't think this treatment is anything new.

"I know keeping you on antibiotics will prevent cellulitis from recurring," said Dr. Michele Green, a dermatologist at Lenox Hill Hospital, in New York City. "The problem is that the protective effect diminishes once drug therapy is stopped.

"This is what I do with older people. I keep them on antibiotics for a longer period of time so that they don't have a problem, but once you take them off they're just as vulnerable as they were before," Green said. "That's just common sense."

In addition, Green worries that keeping people on antibiotics for extended periods helps build the bacteria's resistance to the drug.

For the new study, Williams' team randomly assigned 274 people who had suffered from cellulitis of the leg that had been treated to one year of treatment with low-dose penicillin or placebos.

Over three years of follow-up, people taking penicillin saw a recurrence of cellulitis 626 days after the drug was stopped, compared with 532 days for those in the placebo group, the researchers found.

While on penicillin, 30 people had a recurrence of cellulitis, compared with 51 patients taking the placebo, they found.

More information

To find out more about cellulitis, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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TUESDAY, April 30 (HealthDay News) -- Exposure to secondhand smoke at home appears to lower teen girls' levels of the "good" cholesterol -- the substance that reduces heart disease risk, researchers report.

The new study included more than 1,000 male and female teens, aged 17, in Australia who had blood tests to check their levels of "good" high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol. While "bad" low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol creates a build-up that can block blood vessels, HDL plays a positive role by clearing excess cholesterol from the bloodstream.

The researchers also examined information about smoking in the teens' households beginning before they were born, when their mothers were 18 weeks into their pregnancies. Forty-eight percent of the study participants had been exposed to secondhand smoke at home, according to the study in the May issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

"In our study, we found 17-year-old girls raised in households where passive smoking occurred were more likely to experience declines in HDL cholesterol levels," lead author Dr. Chi Le-Ha, of the University of Western Australia, said in a news release from the Endocrine Society.

"Secondhand smoke did not have the same impact on teenage boys of the same age, which suggests passive smoking exposure may be more harmful to girls. Considering cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in women in the western world, this is a serious concern," Le-Ha added.

The findings suggest that exposure to secondhand smoke in childhood may be a more significant risk factor for women than men.

"We need to redouble public health efforts to reduce young children's secondhand smoke exposure in the home, particularly girls' exposure," Le-Ha stated in the news release.

The association seen in the study does not prove that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between secondhand smoke exposure in girls and low levels of HDL cholesterol.

More information

The American Heart Association has more about good and bad cholesterol.

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TUESDAY, April 30 (HealthDay News) -- Extremely premature infants are more likely to have mental and physical disabilities than full-term infants, but rates of such disabilities aren't rising, new research says.

The study included almost 500 children in Sweden who were born extremely premature (before 27 weeks of gestation) and assessed when they were 30 months old. The children, born between 2004 and 2007, were checked for disabilities such as cerebral palsy, impaired mental development, and vision and hearing problems.

Forty-two percent of extremely premature children had no disability (compared with 78 percent of full-term children), 31 percent had a mild disability, 16 percent had a moderate disability and 11 percent had a severe disability.

The more premature the birth, the more likely a child was to have a moderate or severe disability, according to the study, which was published in the May 1 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In recent decades, improved treatment and care has increased the likelihood that extremely premature infants will survive, and this has led to concerns that the cost of better survival rates may mean more children with disabilities.

"Improved survival did not translate into increasing disability rates, and we, like others, believe that the neurodevelopmental outcome for extremely preterm children born in the 2000s will be better than for those born in the 1990s," Dr. Fredrik Serenius, of Uppsala University, and colleagues said in a journal news release.

Even so, the risk of disability among extremely premature infants is high and shows the need for further improvements in care, including better infection control and improved nutrition, the researchers said.

More information

The Nemours Foundation has more about premature babies.

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MONDAY, April 29 (HealthDay News) -- The population of microbes in the air of the New York City subway system is nearly identical to that of the air on city streets, according to a new study.

Along with showing the efficiency of the subway system's ventilation system, the findings provide an important baseline in case air in the system needs to be checked for the spread of potentially dangerous microbes, the researchers said.

The research team used a new high-tech device to collect air at a rate of about 300 liters per minute. Within 20 minutes, the researchers had a sufficient amount of air to conduct a census of the microbe population.

The study is published online in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

The findings "are strong testimony for the efficiency of the train pumping system for ventilation," principal investigator Norman Pace, of the University of Colorado, Boulder, said in a journal news release.

The only obvious differences between air on the street and in the subway is that the subway's population of microbes has a somewhat higher proportion of skin microbiota and twice the density of fungal microbes, which Pace said may be due to rotting wood.

"I was impressed by the similarity of [subway] and outdoor air," he said.

Until now, there was nothing known about the microbe population of subway air, Pace said. He added that the microbiology of indoor air is a growing area of research as scientists try to understand how these complex microbial ecosystems affect health and the environment.

Some day this knowledge will influence design and construction practices, said Paula Olsiewski, program director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which funded the research.

More information

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offers an overview of indoor air quality.

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