Natural disasters and respiratory health.

Natural disasters-including heatwaves, wildfires, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions-significantly impact respiratory health, posing heightened risks to vulnerable populations such as individuals with pre-existing conditions, children, and the elderly. This review explores the complex relationship between natural catastrophes and respiratory health, emphasising the roles of chemical pollutants, biocontaminants, and meteorological factors.Epidemiological evidence highlights alarming trends, including increased asthma exacerbations, COPD hospitalisations, and respiratory infections following these events.

Breathing hazards: Perspective on the adverse health effects of organophosphate flame retardants.

Since the 1970s, flame retardants have been applied to consumer and industrial products to prevent combustion and the spread of fires, with polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) being the most prevalent. However, due to environmental and human health concerns, the use of PBDEs was phased out and nearly eliminated by the early 2000s. As a safer alternative to PBDEs, organophosphate flame retardants (OPFRs) were proposed as they were believed to have a shorter half-life and increased degradation rate compared to PBDEs.

Scientific developments in understanding food allergy prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.

Food allergies (FAs) are adverse immune reactions to normally innocuous foods. Their prevalence has been increasing in recent decades. They can be IgE-mediated, non-IgE mediated, or mixed.

Exposomics: a review of methodologies, applications, and future directions in molecular medicine.

The exposome is the measure of all the exposures of an individual in a lifetime and how those exposures relate to health. Exposomics is the emerging field of research to measure and study the totality of the exposome. Exposomics can assist with molecular medicine by furthering our understanding of how the exposome influences cellular and molecular processes such as gene expression, epigenetic modifications, metabolic pathways, and immune responses.

Advocating for planetary health is an essential part of advocating for children's health.

Burning of fossil fuels along with deforestation and ecological disruption have led to the warming of the Earth and climate change. Children are especially vulnerable to adverse health effects of climate change associated changes in the air, soil, and water as their organs are still developing, have a faster breathing rate, higher per pound ingested and inhaled exposures, and greater relative body surface area. To protect this vulnerable population, health care professionals need to play a leading role.

Effects of extreme weather on health in underserved communities.

Increased fossil fuel use has increased carbon dioxide concentrations leading to global warming and climate change with increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as thunderstorms, wildfires, droughts, and heat waves. These changes increase the risk of adverse health effects for all human beings. However, these experiences do not affect everyone equally.

The Immunobiology and Treatment of Food Allergy.

IgE-mediated food allergy (IgE-FA) occurs due to a breakdown in immune tolerance that leads to a detrimental type 2 helper T cell (T2) adaptive immune response. While the processes governing this loss of tolerance are incompletely understood, several host-related and environmental factors impacting the risk of IgE-FA development have been identified. Mounting evidence supports the role of an impaired epithelial barrier in the development of IgE-FA, with exposure of allergens through damaged skin and gut epithelium leading to the aberrant production of alarmins and activation of T2-type allergic inflammation.

Impact of climate change on immune responses and barrier defense.

Climate change is not just jeopardizing the health of our planet but is also increasingly affecting our immune health. There is an expanding body of evidence that climate-related exposures such as air pollution, heat, wildfires, extreme weather events, and biodiversity loss significantly disrupt the functioning of the human immune system. These exposures manifest in a broad range of stimuli, including antigens, allergens, heat stress, pollutants, microbiota changes, and other toxic substances.

Effect of air pollution on asthma.

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory airway disease characterized by respiratory symptoms, variable airflow obstruction, bronchial hyperresponsiveness, and airway inflammation. Exposure to air pollution has been linked to an increased risk of asthma development and exacerbation. This review aims to comprehensively summarize recent data on the impact of air pollution on asthma development and exacerbation.

Immune-mediated disease caused by climate change-associated environmental hazards: mitigation and adaptation.

Global warming and climate change have increased the pollen burden and the frequency and intensity of wildfires, sand and dust storms, thunderstorms, and heatwaves - with concomitant increases in air pollution, heat stress, and flooding. These environmental stressors alter the human exposome and trigger complex immune responses. In parallel, pollutants, allergens, and other environmental factors increase the risks of skin and mucosal barrier disruption and microbial dysbiosis, while a loss of biodiversity and reduced exposure to microbial diversity impairs tolerogenic immune development.

Air pollution and pregnancy.

Increased fossil fuel usage and extreme climate change events have led to global increases in greenhouse gases and particulate matter with 99% of the world's population now breathing polluted air that exceeds the World Health Organization's recommended limits. Pregnant women and neonates with exposure to high levels of air pollutants are at increased risk of adverse health outcomes such as maternal hypertensive disorders, postpartum depression, placental abruption, low birth weight, preterm birth, infant mortality, and adverse lung and respiratory effects. While the exact mechanism by which air pollution exerts adverse health effects is unknown, oxidative stress as well as epigenetic and immune mechanisms are thought to play roles.

Cross-reactive MHC class I T cell epitopes may dictate heterologous immune responses between respiratory viruses and food allergens.

Respiratory virus infections play a major role in asthma, while there is a close correlation between asthma and food allergy. We hypothesized that T cell-mediated heterologous immunity may induce asthma symptoms among sensitized individuals and used two independent in silico pipelines for the identification of cross-reactive virus- and food allergen- derived T cell epitopes, considering individual peptide sequence similarity, MHC binding affinity and immunogenicity. We assessed the proteomes of human rhinovirus (RV1b), respiratory syncytial virus (RSVA2) and influenza-strains contained in the seasonal quadrivalent influenza vaccine 2019/2020 (QIV 2019/2020), as well as SARS-CoV-2 for human HLA alleles, in addition to more than 200 most common food allergen protein sequences.

Mechanisms of gut epithelial barrier impairment caused by food emulsifiers polysorbate 20 and polysorbate 80.

Background: The rising prevalence of many chronic diseases related to gut barrier dysfunction coincides with the increased global usage of dietary emulsifiers in recent decades. We therefore investigated the effect of the frequently used food emulsifiers on cytotoxicity, barrier function, transcriptome alterations, and protein expression in gastrointestinal epithelial cells.

Methods: Human intestinal organoids originating from induced pluripotent stem cells, colon organoid organ-on-a-chip, and liquid-liquid interface cells were cultured in the presence of two common emulsifiers: polysorbate 20 (P20) and polysorbate 80 (P80).

The Role of Climate Change in Asthma.

Human activity and increased use of fossil fuels have led to climate change. These changes are adversely affecting human health, including increasing the risk of developing asthma. Global temperatures are predicted to increase in the future.

Mechanisms of climate change and related air pollution on the immune system leading to allergic disease and asthma.

Climate change is considered the greatest threat to global health. Greenhouse gases as well as global surface temperatures have increased causing more frequent and intense heat and cold waves, wildfires, floods, drought, altered rainfall patterns, hurricanes, thunderstorms, air pollution, and windstorms. These extreme weather events have direct and indirect effects on the immune system, leading to allergic disease due to exposure to pollen, molds, and other environmental pollutants.

Child-focused climate change and health content in medical schools and pediatric residencies.

Anthropogenic climate change-driven primarily by the combustion of fossil fuels that form greenhouse gases-has numerous consequences that impact health, including extreme weather events of accelerating frequency and intensity (e.g., wildfires, thunderstorms, droughts, and heat waves), mental health sequelae of displacement from these events, and the increase in aeroallergens and other pollutants.

Acute and chronic impacts of heat stress on planetary health.

Heat waves are increasing in intensity, frequency, and duration causing significant heat stress in all living organisms. Heat stress has multiple negative effects on plants affecting photosynthesis, respiration, growth, development, and reproduction. It also impacts animals leading to physiological and behavioral alterations, such as reduced caloric intake, increased water intake, and decreased reproduction and growth.

Climate change and public health: The effects of global warming on the risk of allergies and autoimmune diseases: The effects of global warming on the risk of allergies and autoimmune diseases.

Global climate change and extreme weather events are associated with epigenetic modifications in immune cells, leading to the possible increased risk and prevalence of allergies and autoimmune diseases.

Allergy: Mechanistic insights into new methods of prevention and therapy.

In the past few decades, the prevalence of allergic diseases has increased worldwide. Here, we review the etiology and pathophysiology of allergic diseases, including the role of the epithelial barrier, the immune system, climate change, and pollutants. Our current understanding of the roles of early life and infancy; diverse diet; skin, respiratory, and gut barriers; and microbiome in building immune tolerance to common environmental allergens has led to changes in prevention guidelines.

Correction: Quake et al. Early Introduction of Multi-Allergen Mixture for Prevention of Food Allergy: Pilot Study. Nutrients 2022, 14, 737.

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Improving planetary health is integral to improving children's health-a call to action.

This article summarizes the adverse effects of climate and environmental change on children's health. We call for policy change, education, and advocacy to halt further deterioration of planetary health and for specific measures to prevent the negative effects of climate and environmental change on children's health. We offer an agenda for research, policy change, and healthcare practices to improve the resilience of pediatric populations in the face of climate change.