Objectives:Adverse effects have been reported of prenatal and/or postnatal passive exposure to smoking on children’s health. Uncertainties remain about the relative importance of smoking at different periods in the child’s life. We investigate this in a pooled analysis, on 53 879 children from 12 cross-sectional studies—components of the PATY study (Pollution And The Young).Methods:Effects were estimated, within each study, of three exposures: mother smoked during pregnancy, parental smoking in the first two years, current parental smoking. Outcomes were: wheeze, asthma, “woken by wheeze”, bronchitis, nocturnal cough, morning cough, “sensitivity to inhaled allergens” and hay fever. Logistic regressions were used, controlling for individual risk factors and study area. Heterogeneity between study-specific results, and mean effects (allowing for heterogeneity) were estimated using meta-analytical tools.Results:There was strong evidence linking parental smoking to wheeze, asthma, bronchitis and nocturnal cough, with mean odds ratios all around 1.15, with independent effects of prenatal and postnatal exposures for most associations.Conclusions:Adverse effects of both pre- and postnatal parental smoking on children’s respiratory health were confirmed. Asthma was most strongly associated with maternal smoking during pregnancy, but postnatal exposure showed independent associations with a range of other respiratory symptoms. All tobacco smoke exposure has serious consequences for children’s respiratory health and needs to be reduced urgently.

Stable suspensions of nanogold (NG) and nanosilver (NS) with mean particle diameter 50 and 49 nm, respectively, were prepared by laser ablation of metals in water. To assess rat’s pulmonary phagocytosis response to a single intratracheal instillation of these suspensions, we used optical, transmission electron, and semi-contact atomic force microscopy. NG and NS were also repeatedly injected intraperitoneally into rats at a dose of 10 mg/kg (0.5 mg per mL of deionized water) three times a week, up to 20 injections. A group of rats was thus injected with NS after oral administration of a “bioprotective complex” (BPC) comprised of pectin, multivitamins, some amino acids, calcium, selenium, and omega-3 PUFA. After the termination of the injections, many functional and biochemical indices and histopathological features of the spleen, kidneys and liver were evaluated for signs of toxicity, and accumulation of NG or NS in these organs was measured. From the same rats, we obtained cell suspensions of different tissues for performing the RAPD test. It was demonstrated that, although both nanometals were adversely bioactive in all respects considered in this study, NS was more noxious as compared with NG, and that the BPC tested by us attenuated both the toxicity and genotoxicity of NS.

Adverse effects of tobacco smoke on asthma, chronic bronchitis, and chronic respiratory symptoms are strongest when smoking takes place during pregnancy. The relations are weaker for exposure during early-life and after 2 years of age and weakest or non-existent for current exposure.

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Aqueous suspensions of 10 nm, 50 nm, or 1 μm Fe(3)O(4) particles were injected intraperitoneally (ip) to rats at a dose of 500 mg/kg in 4 mL of sterile deionized water 3 times a week for 5 weeks. Following exposure, functional and biochemical indices and histopathological examinations of spleen and liver tissues of exposed rats were evaluated for signs of toxicity. The iron content of the blood was measured photometrically, and that of the liver and the spleen by atomic adsorption spectroscopy (AAS) and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) methods. It was found that, given equal mass doses, Fe(3)O(4) nanoparticles possess considerably higher systemic toxicity than microparticles, but within the nanometric range the relationship between particle size and resorptive toxicity is intricate and nonunique. The latter fact may be attributed to differences in different nanoparticles' toxicokinetics, which are controlled by both more or less substantial direct penetration of nanoparticles through biological barriers and their unequal solubility.