Lungs

In the largest and longest study of its kind, USC researchers have found that children living near busy highways have significant impairments in the development of their lungs that can lead to respiratory problems for the rest of their lives.

Monique Mendoza's cystic fibrosis was so debilitating three years ago that taking a shower left her exhausted and nearly breathless. The disease had not only clogged her lungs, but also sapped her strength and spirit. "I had my funeral planned. I was OK with ... dying," said Mendoza, a 30-year-old resident of Rancho Santa Margarita. "I had already been to a lot of my friends' funerals with CF, so I knew what they were like."

She saw whales while jogging on the beach. She swam with sea turtles in the Pacific. She snapped a couple of pictures of her friend while biking through the Hawaiian countryside. Monique Mendoza finished a triathlon Sunday, two years after having a double lung transplant. But that's not what she wanted to talk about. Mendoza wanted to talk about how the sun felt on her skin, what it was like to walk on lava rock, the way the doves cooed as she ran past. "Have you ever seen a dove up close?

At least one man who ate several bags of butter-flavored microwave popcorn each day has developed a life-threatening lung disease possibly caused by an additive in the popcorn, his doctor says, and U.S. regulators have launched an investigation.

British researchers have successfully implanted lung cells grown from embryonic stem cells into the lungs of mice, in a move that may one day provide treatments for humans with severe breathing problems. Until now, stem cells have been seen as a promising avenue for conditions such as diabetes and Parkinson's disease, but respiratory ailments have not been considered because of the highly complex nature of lung tissue.

Patients with lung disease have few options. Machines that oxygenate the blood during heart and lung surgery -- and pump it through the body -- have been saving lives for 50 years, but the devices are big, clunky and require the presence of a specialist, making them inappropriate for patients not undergoing such surgery. Partly as a result, nearly 342,000 Americans die of lung disease each year.

Lenore Hittelman is in a quandary faced by many this weekend. With the air still hazy with soot from the wildfires, do you allow your children to go play? The choice is made that much harder for the Irvine mother because her oldest daughter's soccer team is scheduled to play a crucial match Sunday that could determine which division their squad will land in next season. "We know the air quality is bad, but if the team needs you, what do you do?"

Emergency safety standards are needed to counter a widening outbreak of lung disease among workers exposed to a common ingredient in microwave popcorn, health experts and labor unions said Tuesday. The Teamsters and United Food and Commercial Workers plan to file an emergency petition today demanding that the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration set exposure limits for diacetyl, a flavoring agent used in the manufacture of artificial popcorn butter, dog food and other products.

New York City firefighters who inhaled toxic dust after the collapse of the World Trade Center in 2001 suffered a sudden loss of lung capacity 12 times the normal rate that occurs each year as people age, according to a study of 12,000 firefighters released Tuesday. Respiratory tests taken a year after the attacks showed the average firefighter exhaled about 23 cubic inches less air in one second than before Sept. 11 -- a 9% decrease, the study found. "It's pretty scary, actually," said Dr.

Lung power normally declines as a person ages but being angry and hostile can speed up the process, researchers said last week. In a study of 670 men ages 45 to 86, they found that males who had higher levels of long-standing anger at the start of the eight-year project had significantly poorer lung function at the end of it. The scientists, who used a scoring system to measure the levels of anger of each of the men, tested their lung power three times during the study.