Language and geographical location influence the incidence of chronic cough in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging

French speakers have a 4% lower incidence of chronic cough than English speakers in the CLSA, but English speakers from Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nova Scotia also have a lower risk of developing chronic cough https://bit.ly/3qAd3M

Effects of Asm-024, A Modulator of Acetylcholine Receptor Function, On Airway Responsiveness and Allergen-Induced Responses in Patients with Mild Asthma

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the safety, tolerability and clinical activity of ASM-024, a new cholinergic compound with dual nicotinic and muscarinic activity, in mild allergic asthma

Efficacy and safety of once-daily fluticasone furoate 50 mcg in adults with persistent asthma: a 12-week randomized trial

Abstract Background Fluticasone furoate (FF) is a novel, once-daily inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) that has been shown to improve lung function vs. placebo in asthma patients. This study evaluated the efficacy and safety of FF 50 mcg compared with placebo in asthma patients uncontrolled by non-ICS therapy. Methods This 12-week, multicentre, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, phase III study randomized 248 patients (aged ≥12 years) to once-daily FF 50 mcg administered via the ELLIPTA™a dry powder inhaler or placebo. The primary endpoint was change from baseline in pre-dose evening trough forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1). Secondary endpoints were change from baseline in percentage of rescue-free 24-h periods (powered), evening and morning peak expiratory flow, symptom-free 24-h periods and withdrawals due to lack of efficacy. Other endpoints included Asthma Control Test™, Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire and ELLIPTA ease of use questions. Safety was assessed throughout the study. Results There was a significant difference in evening trough FEV1 between FF 50 mcg and placebo (treatment difference: 120 mL; p = 0.012). There was also a significant difference in rescue-free 24-h periods (11.6%; p = 0.004) vs. placebo. There were numerically greater improvements with FF vs. placebo for all remaining secondary endpoints. The incidence of adverse events was lower with FF (31%) than with placebo (38%); few were treatment-related (FF 50 mcg: n = 1, <1%; placebo: n = 4, 3%). Conclusion FF 50 mcg once daily significantly improved FEV1 and percentage of rescue-free 24-h periods experienced over 12 weeks vs. placebo, and was well tolerated. Trial registration www.clinicaltrials.gov , registration number: NCT0143607

Process account of curiosity and interest: a reward-learning perspective

Previous studies suggested roles for curiosity and interest in knowledge acquisition and exploration, but there has been a long-standing debate about how to define these concepts and whether they are related or different. In this paper, we address the definition issue by arguing that there is inherent difficulty in defining curiosity and interest, because both curiosity and interest are naïve concepts, which are not supposed to have a priori scientific definitions. We present a reward-learning framework of autonomous knowledge acquisition and use this framework to illustrate the importance of process account as an alternative to advance our understanding of curiosity and interest without being troubled by their definitions. The framework centers on the role of rewarding experience associated with knowledge acquisition and learning and posits that the acquisition of new knowledge strengthens the value of further information. Critically, we argue that curiosity and interest are the concepts that they subjectively construe through this knowledge-acquisition process. Finally, we discuss the implications of the reward-learning framework for education and empirical research in educational psychology

Understanding allergic asthma from allergen inhalation tests

The allergen challenge has evolved, in less than 150 years, from a crude tool used to document the etiology of allergen-induced disease to a well-controlled tool used today to investigate the pathophysiology and pharmacotherapy of asthma. Highlights of the authors’ involvement with the allergen challenge include confirmation of the immunoglobulin E-dependence of the late asthmatic response, importance of (nonallergic) airway hyper-responsiveness as a determinant of the airway response to allergen, identification of allergen-induced increase in airway hyper-responsiveness, documentation of beta2-agonist-induced increase in airway response to allergen (including eosinophilic inflammation), advances in understanding the pathophysiology and kinetics of allergen-induced airway responses, and development of a muticentre clinical trial group devoted to using the allergen challenge for investigating promising new therapeutic strategies for asthma