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Previous Volume 343:1819-1820 December 14, 2000 Number 24 Next

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Committee on the Assessment of Asthma and Indoor Air for the Institute of Medicine. 438 pp. Washington, D.C., National Academy Press, 2000. $57.95. ISBN 0-309-06496-1.

The rising trends in asthma and associated allergic diseases create a problem that affects many developed and developing countries and that so far has defied explanation other than apportioning blame to changing lifestyles and the environment. But what aspects of the environment could be responsible for these changes? A number of hypotheses have been advanced — the "hygiene hypothesis" finding popular favor — but deprivation of the mucosal immune response from microbial programming early in life fits best with changing trends in atopy, rather than with trends in asthma. It is convenient and politically expedient to link asthma with air . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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