“…Although the speci®c reasons for this increase are unclear, the rise has been attributed to a number of possible mechanisms. These include declining pulmonary mechanics (Vaisman et al, 1987a;Buchdahl et al, 1988;Fried et al, 1991;Amin & Dozor, 1994), malnutrition (Vaisman et al, 1987a,b;Naon et al, 1993;Zemel et al, 1996), in¯ammation of the infectious agents within the lungs (Buchdahl et al, 1988;Naon et al, 1993;Steinkamp et al, 1993;Bell et al, 2000), genetics (O'Rawe et al, 1990(O'Rawe et al, , 1992Thomson et al, 1996;Zemel et al, 1996) and cellular iron transport defects (Feigal & Shapiro, 1979;Stutts et al, 1986). …”