Handling Pesticides Associated with Greater Asthma Risk in Farm Women
New research on farm women has shown that contact with some commonly used pesticides in farm work may increase their risk of allergic asthma.
“Farm women are an understudied occupational group,” said Jane Hoppin, Sc.D., of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and lead author of the study. “More than half the women in our study applied pesticides, but there is very little known about the risks.”
Two Genes Are Important Key to Regulating Immune Response
A research team at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City has identified two genes that may be crucial to the production of an immune system cytokine called interleukin-10 (IL-10).
The discovery fills in an important “missing link” in a biochemical pathway that’s long been tied to disorders ranging from lupus and Type 1 diabetes, to cancer and AIDS.
