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Occupational Asthma
Published in Pudupakkam K Vedanthan, Harold S Nelson, Shripad N Agashe, PA Mahesh, Rohit Katial, Textbook of Allergy for the Clinician, 2021
Bill Brashier, Amruta Wankhede
The incidence of OA varies depending on the type of exposure and geographic location around the world. For example, OA has been reported in 8–12% of laboratory animal workers, 7–9% of bakers and 1.4% of healthcare workers exposed to natural rubber latex; however, these latter rates vary depending on the study cited. Overall, males have the higher attributable risk for OA (14%) compared to women (7%); however, women have a higher risk for OA in certain occupations such as drivers, cleaners, nurses and hairdressers. The use of spray products, especially chlorine bleach, ammonia and air freshening sprays, in occupations like spray-painters and janitorial cleaning seems to put these workers at greatest risk for developing OA and other respiratory disorders. Probably the best data on OA prevalence and occupational exposures comes from a public health surveillance program performed by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) which identified > 4000 cases of work-related asthma from 1993 to 2002 in four states (California, Massachusetts, Michigan and New Jersey) with ~ 68% caused by occupational exposure and 20% represented pre-existing asthma aggravated by occupational exposure (Greiwe and Bernstein 2019). Occupational asthma can arise de novo, or in those with existing or reactivated childhood asthma, and its incidence is 74–300 cases per million workers per annum (Walters et al. 2019). Occupational asthma, according to existing national workplace health surveillance systems, has been the most commonly reported occupational respiratory disease in both the United States and Great Britain for more than two decades (Balogun et al. 2018).
Urinary 1H NMR metabolomics profile of Italian citizens exposed to background levels of arsenic: a (pre)cautionary tale
Published in Biomarkers, 2019
Emanuela Locci, Luigi Isaia Lecca, Roberto Piras, Antonio Noto, Ilaria Pilia, Ernesto d’Aloja, Marcello Campagna
The study protocol was notified to the Independent Ethical Committee of the Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria of Cagliari. All participating subjects provided written informed consent prior to participation. A cross-sectional study was performed collecting data during the annual workplace health surveillance programme conducted by the Occupational Medicine Department of the University of Cagliari, Italy, from October 2014 to December 2014. Eighty-six healthy male workers, the overall workforce of a logistic support company for safety in communication and flight were enrolled (Figure 1). Only male workers were recruited since no female subjects were present in this specific workplace. All subjects were in force from at least three years and they all agreed to participate in the study. Demographic data and lifestyle information, including age, Body Mass Index (BMI), alcohol intake, smoking habits, physical recreational activity, and health history were recorded for each participant. Furthermore, clinical parameters, including systolic and diastolic pressure, heart rate, glycaemia, alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT), serum and urine creatinine were recorded. Exclusion criteria were the existence of chronic pathologies and the detection of drugs metabolites in urine that can generate an alteration of spectra. During the annual workplace health surveillance, first-morning urine samples were collected from fasted subjects, mixed with sodium azide 0.01% (NaN3, Sigma-Aldrich, Milan, Italy), in order to avoid bacterial growth, and immediately stored at −80 °C.