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MONDAY, July 9 (HealthDay News) -- The vitamin C in fruit and the omega-3 fatty acids in fish could help tame teens' asthma symptoms, a new study finds.

"Teens that have the lowest intake of fruits, vitamin C and omega-3 fatty acids tended to have lower pulmonary function and reported more respiratory symptoms than those with higher intake," said study author Jane Burns, a research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.

"This is a time in their lives when they should all have good lung function, and they may not be obtaining optimal lung function. This may affect their lung function later in life," Burns added.

Results of the study are published in the July issue of Chest.

About 20 million Americans -- 9 million of them children -- have asthma, according to the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. While the exact cause of the disease is still unknown, doctors do know that underlying inflammation of the airways is an important factor in the disease. Preventive treatments for asthma are aimed at reducing that inflammation.

Burns and her colleagues included more than 2,000 12th-grade students from 12 areas in the United States and Canada in the current study. Over the course of a year, they asked the teens about their diets, their general health and respiratory symptoms, and also tested the adolescents' lung function.

Most of the teens were white, about one-third were overweight, and nearly three-quarters didn't take a daily multivitamin. About one-quarter of the adolescents studied smoked.

Many of the teens -- about one-third -- had dietary shortfalls when it came to consumption of fruits, vegetables, vitamins A and E, beta-carotene and omega-3 fatty acids. A whopping 86 percent didn't consume the recommended five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables each day.

The researchers also found that consumption of less than one-quarter of a serving of fruit daily resulted in lower average lung-function scores. A low intake of vitamin E -- less than 5.2 milligrams daily -- was associated with a increased risk of reported asthma.

Finally, a low intake of omega-3 fatty acids -- less than 22 milligrams per day -- was associated with increased odds of chronic bronchitis, wheezing and asthma. In fact, those with the lowest intake of omega-3 fatty acids were almost 70 percent more likely to report have asthma symptoms.

There was a slight increase in the adjusted odds -- about 6 percent -- of developing chronic bronchitis or acute bronchitis in teen smokers who averaged less than 85 milligrams per day of vitamin C daily compared to smokers with the highest vitamin C intake.

Burns said she believes healthy diets help airways in several ways. One is by lessening inflammation, and the other stems from the helpful effects of antioxidants.

"Asthma is a physical state where there's a lot of oxidative stress, and a high intake of antioxidants may make the lung cells less responsive to oxidative stress," said Burns.

"You really are what you eat," added Dr. Jane Krasnick, chief of allergy and immunology at St. John Macomb-Oakland Hospital in Warren, Mich. "What you put in your body may make a difference. We spend a lot of time worrying about what we inhale and environmental exposures, maybe we should think more about what we're putting into our bodies [as food] as well," she said.

Both Burns and Krasnick recommended that teens up their intake of fresh fruit and fish whenever possible. Burns added that teens should also take a daily multivitamin. While a multivitamin isn't as good as healthy food, "vitamins are very useful and easy to take," she said.

More information

To learn more about asthma prevention, visit the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology  .

MONDAY, July 2 (HealthDay News) -- An international team of researchers has identified the first human antibodies capable of neutralizing different strains of the virus responsible for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

The SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) caused a worldwide epidemic in late 2002/early 2003, infecting 8,000 people and killing about 10 percent of them. A second outbreak occurred in the winter of 2003/2004, but only four individuals were infected.

This new discovery marks a major step towards developing specific drugs and vaccines should the deadly disease re-emerge, experts noted.

"One thing it means is, there's an actual promise of an effective therapeutic [approach] for SARS, which we currently don't have," said Dr. Brian Currie, medical director for research at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. He was not involved in the study.

The research, conducted by scientists in the United States, Switzerland and Australia, appears in this week's early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In both SARS outbreaks, the virus' spread was apparently sparked by animal-to-human transmission, meaning future outbreaks are still possible.

The particular viral strain that caused the 2002 outbreak probably no longer exists in nature, the experts said, making it imperative that any vaccine or drug be effective against a variety of animal strains, not just against strains found in humans.

The authors of the study say they have identified two human antibodies that bind to a specific region of the SARS virus.

One of the antibodies, called S230.15, was discovered in the blood of a patient who recovered from SARS, while the other, m396, was taken from a library of human antibodies culled from the blood of 10 healthy volunteers.

The antibodies were tested in a mouse model and in lab tests. In both cases, they were found to neutralize samples of the virus left over from both outbreaks.

They also neutralized samples of the virus taken from wild civets (a cat-like mammal thought to have originally transmitted the virus to humans), although less effectively.

More tests suggested that m396 could neutralize all known forms of the SARS virus.

"These are human monoclonal antibodies that are directed against a protein on the surface of a virus that's actually the binding protein to the virus, so they can prevent, as well as ameliorate, infection," Currie explained.

"The problem in the past is there have been candidate monoclonal antibodies, but they didn't react with each one of the strains for each one of the SARS outbreaks," he continued. "You did not have a reliable candidate for treatment, so this is a big breakthrough. It will allow people to move ahead and actually make this into a treatment modality."

Another expert offered his take on the discovery.

"If there's never another outbreak of SARS, it's of no importance whatsoever," said Dr. Julian Leibowitz, a professor of microbial and molecular pathogenesis at Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine, in College Station.

However, he added, the finding could be crucial in the event the virus re-emerges, since "this provides two antibodies that could be used clinically."

More information

There's more on SARS at the World Health Organization  .

FRIDAY, July 6 (HealthDay News) -- A breathing technique known as the Papworth method can cut asthma symptoms by a third, a new study finds.

The Papworth method is a sequence of breathing and relaxation exercises developed in the 1960s. The training involves a diaphragmatic breathing technique, emphasizes nose breathing and the development of a breathing pattern to suit current activity. The breathing exercises are accompanied by relaxation training and education focused on helping people integrate the exercises into their daily life and recognize the early signs of stress.

The study, published online ahead of print in Thorax, included 85 people with mild asthma. Participants were randomly assigned to receive either five sessions of treatment by the Papworth method in addition to their medical care, or to continue to rely on their usual drug therapy.

After the sessions had finished, the participants filled out the St. George's Respiratory System Questionnaire to assess their asthma symptoms.

According to researchers at University College London, people who had been treated with the Papworth method scored an average of 21.8 on the questionnaire, compared with an average score of 32.8 for those who did not receive treatment, indicating that treatment was associated with an approximate one-third reduction in asthma symptoms.

And the reduction in symptoms appeared to last. At 12 months, the participants who had used the Papworth method scored 24.9 on the questionnaire, compared with a score of 33.5 among those who did not use the breathing strategy.

Use of the Papworth method was also associated with less depression and anxiety, and symptoms from inappropriate breathing habits were reduced. In addition, the technique improved relaxed breathing rate.

The Papworth method was not associated with significant changes in objective measures of lung function, suggesting that treatments with the Papworth method "do not improve the chronic underlying physiological causes of asthma but rather their manifestation," according to the authors of the study.

More information

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has more about asthma.