Saharan dust and wildfire smoke lowering air quality, could cause respiratory issues

LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY) – A mix of Saharan Dust, which is dust blown across the Atlantic by the trade winds, and smoke from wildfires in Canada, is leading to lower air quality across much of the eastern parts of the United States this weekend. This includes Acadiana, although air quality is expected to be lower further to the northeast. Nonetheless, you may be able to notice a haze in the sky and some prettier sunsets. This is due to the increase in atmospheric particles refracting blue light and kicking back more longwave colors like red, orange, and yellow. Lowering air quality does, however, increase the risk of health issues, especially for those with chronic respiratory illnesses.
Doctor Shalini Choudhary with Oschner Lafayette General says this dust and smoke could even affect healthy people as well. 'Simple symptoms like it can cause irritation to your eyes, it can cause nasal stuffiness, hoarseness of voice, and scratchy throat,' says Dr. Choudhary.
Those with chronic respiratory conditions like allergies and asthma are affecting more severely.
'It can aggravate allergy symptoms, it can cause allergy rhinitis, it can also affect lower/upper respiratory tract and cause wheezing,' adds Dr. Choudhary. If you are prone to allergies, however, there are preventive measures you can take. 'Keep up with your allergy medications at home, you can always have Zyrtec and Xyzal available over the counter,' explains Dr. Choudhary. Patients with asthma must take precautions as well as asthma flaring up could always lead to more serious issues. 'Try to take your inhaler as prescribed by PCP, talk to your PCP and they'll be able to help you out in prescribing some rescue inhalers,' says Dr. Choudhary.
Dr. Choudhary says these preventive measures will help, but it's still important to monitor your symptoms, especially if they start getting more severe.
'Shortness of breath, and some chest tightness, those are ER symptoms, which you need to notify MD and head to ER because it could be an asthma attack, which could be deadly,' explains Dr. Choudhary.
If you have severe asthma, Dr. Choudhary says you can always close your windows and stay indoors until air quality improves.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Business Wire

18 minutes ago

• Business Wire

Forte Biosciences Announces Positive Data in FB102 Celiac Disease Phase 1B Study

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Forte Biosciences, Inc. ( (NASDAQ: FBRX), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on autoimmune and autoimmune-related diseases, today announced positive data from a Phase 1b trial in celiac disease for lead program FB102 (FB102-101). The company will be hosting a conference call today at 8:30 am ET. Prof. Jason Tye-Din, Head of Celiac Research at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and principal investigator in the FB102-101 study will be participating in the call. Please connect to the call using the following link: The event and accompanying slides can also be accessed by visiting the investor relations section of the company's website at An archived webcast will be available on the company's website following the event. The FB102-101 Phase 1b celiac disease study enrolled 32 subjects 3:1 randomized (24 on FB102 and 8 on placebo). Subjects received 4 doses of FB102 (10 mg/kg) and underwent a 16 day gluten challenge. In addition to safety and tolerability, the study assessed morphologic and inflammatory endpoints along with gluten challenge (GC) induced symptoms. FB102 demonstrated a statistically significant benefit on the composite histological VCIEL endpoint (change from baseline). The mean VCIEL change from baseline was -1.849 for placebo subjects compared to 0.079 for FB102 treated subjects (p=0.0099). The change in the density of CD3-positive T cells, or IELs, from baseline was an increase of 13.3 for placebo subjects compared to a decline of 1.5 for FB102 treated subjects (p=0.0035). Baseline IEL density was 25.6 for the placebo subjects and 23.5 for the FB102 treated subjects. The mean change in the Vh:Cd ratio from baseline was -0.173 (0.21) for placebo subjects compared to -0.046 (0.09), a 73% improvement for FB102 treated subjects compared to placebo. Gluten challenge induced GI symptoms (nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain and abdominal bloating) reported during the 16 day gluten challenge from patient diaries/AE collection demonstrated a 42% benefit for FB102 treated subject (4.0 events per subject) compared to placebo (6.9 events per subject). There were no dropouts in the study. Treatment emergent adverse events (TEAE) were primarily mild (grade 1) with no grade 3 or higher SAEs reported in the FB102 arm. 'We want to congratulate all of the investigators and researchers that supported this study. I also want to acknowledge the incredible dedication and hard work of the Forte team. Celiac disease is debilitating for many patients with even trace exposure to gluten. FB102 has taken a big step forward towards addressing this very large unmet need with the results from this study. The Phase 2 celiac disease study is initiating with a topline readout expected in 2026.' said Paul Wagner, Ph.D. CEO and Chairperson of Forte Biosciences. 'These results are also very encouraging given the biology of the additional FB102 indications including vitiligo, alopecia areata and type 1 diabetes. We also look forward to reading out the topline results of the FB102 vitiligo study in the first half of 2026.' About Forte Forte Biosciences, Inc. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that is advancing FB102, which is a proprietary anti-CD122 monoclonal antibody therapeutic candidate with potentially broad autoimmune and autoimmune-related indications. Forward-Looking Statements Forte cautions you that statements included in this press release that are not a description of historical facts are forward-looking statements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terms such as 'may,' 'will,' 'should,' 'expect,' 'plan,' 'anticipate,' 'could,' 'intend,' 'target,' 'project,' 'contemplates,' 'believes,' 'estimates,' 'predicts,' 'potential' or 'continue' or the negatives of these terms or other similar expressions. These statements are based on the Forte's current beliefs and expectations. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding Forte's beliefs, goals, intentions and expectations regarding its product candidate, FB102 and the therapeutic and commercial market potential of FB102, the expected timeline for the Phase 2 celiac study and related readout, and the expected timing of topline results for the FB102 vitiligo study. Actual results and the timing of events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements as a result of various risks and uncertainties, which include, without limitation: risks related to Forte's ability to obtain sufficient additional capital to continue to advance Forte's product candidate, FB102; uncertainties associated with the clinical development and regulatory approval of Forte's product candidate, FB102, including potential delays in the commencement, enrollment and completion of clinical trials; the risk that results from preclinical and the Phase 1b trials may not be predictive of future results from clinical trials; risks associated with the failure to realize any value from FB102 in light of inherent risks, expense and difficulties involved in successfully bringing product candidates to market; and additional risks, uncertainties, and other information affecting Forte's business and operating results is contained in Forte's Quarterly Report on Forms 10-Q filed on May 15, 2025, and in its other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All forward-looking statements in this press release are current only as of the date hereof and, except as required by applicable law, Forte undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statement, or to make any other forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. All forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. This caution is made under the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Source: Forte Biosciences, Inc.

Newsweek

2 hours ago

• Newsweek

AI Impact Awards 2025: How 7 Health Care Winners Measure Impact

Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Artificial intelligence is an all-consuming force in the health care industry—and it's still gaining momentum. In 2024, the global health care AI market was estimated at more than $26 billion, and it's expected to grow to over $187 billion by 2030. There's good reason for the boom. Health care executives, physicians and tech leaders alike agree that AI has enormous potential in the industry. It can help make outdated processes more efficient, generate new meaning from massive pools of data and even improve communications between industry stakeholders. But as the AI market grows, it's becoming more challenging for health systems to parse through the noise and find solutions that will actually improve care outcomes. Newsweek spoke with health care and life sciences winners of our inaugural AI Impact Awards to determine how they define and measure impact. Health care and life sciences were just one of the industries represented, and across more than a dozen categories, there were 38 total winners were selected by a panel of AI and subject matter experts. Here's how seven award-winning companies distinguish their AI models from the hype cycle: Several health care companies received AI Impact awards for their significant contributions to the industry. Several health care companies received AI Impact awards for their significant contributions to the industry. Newsweek Illustration AI Health Care, Best Outcomes, Care Coordination – Xsolis Xsolis has created a suite of AI solutions to better connect health care providers with payer organizations and health plans. It serves more than 500 hospitals and health systems and 18 health plans nationwide—and is rapidly expanding its market share, securing spots on the Inc. 5000 and the Deloitte Tech Fast 500 for the fastest growing private companies. To measure impact, Xsolis tracks the number of cases that are denied and overturned by insurance companies, according to Dr. Heather Bassett, the company's chief medical officer. "We're able to show our clients, through the use of our AI and other analytics, that they were able to appropriately capture revenue based on the medical intensity of their patient population," Bassett told Newsweek. "Today, we're at about $1.5 billion that we've either protected or helped our clients appropriately capture [across our company's lifetime]." Since most hospitals are understaffed, they aren't always able to fight every claim and maximize their reimbursements, she added. Xsolis' tool boosts the efficiency of utilization management teams by approximately 20 percent, allowing them to review a larger share of cases. AI Health Care, Best Outcomes, Health Equity – Bunkerhill Health "For us, it's actually fairly easy to quantify impact," Nishith Khandwala, co-founder and CEO of Bunkerhill Health, told Newsweek. The company uses AI to identify clinically significant findings that are hidden in patient records, and ensure that patients receive the follow-up care they need to prevent future complications. For example, a patient might get into a car accident and receive a CT scan to check for cracked ribs. The CT scan might also find signs of coronary artery disease—but in today's medical system, those findings would never be flagged because they weren't relevant to the car crash. Bunkerhill Health tracks success by counting the number of patients that it flags for a separate encounter with a specialist, like a cardiologist or an oncologist. "In our office, we have a counter," Khandwala said. "Every time we find a patient who we discovered to have high risk for some other problem, we increment that counter, because that's the number of lives that we have impacted." AI Health Care, Best Outcomes, Patient Care – Cera Based in the United Kingdom, Cera is harnessing technology and AI to predict and prevent avoidable falls and hospitalizations in the elderly population. Its ecosystem includes a proprietary app that allows health care staff, patients and families to log health indicators in real time, along with two AI models. The first, Falls Prevention AI, predicts 83 percent of falls up to seven days in advance—allowing health care staff to intervene and prevent the leading cause of hospitalizations in adults over age 65. The second, its Hospitalization Predict-Prevent tool, predicts three-quarters of hospitalizations one week in advance. Together, the pair of AI tools flag up to 5,000 high-risk alerts each day, according to Cera founder and CEO Dr. Ben Maruthappu. Data like this shows the impact that the tools are having on patient safety (and on the U.K.'s health system, which spends over £2.3 billion per year on falls in the over-65 population). "Most importantly of all, we are using AI to make an impact at scale," Maruthappu told Newsweek. "Cera works with over a hundred U.K. Local Governments and the majority of NHS regions, reducing costs, transforming life for patients, and bringing healthcare services into the future." AI Health Care, Best Outcomes, Diagnostics – Color Health Color Health is the largest virtual cancer clinic in the United States, created in partnership with the American Cancer Society. Last summer, it teamed up with OpenAI to develop its Cancer Copilot: a novel AI architecture that creates accurate clinical recommendations for clinicians, expanding access to world-class oncology expertise for doctors working at major cancer centers, small community health facilities and every setting in between. The company primarily charts AI impact in two ways, co-founder and CEO Othman Laraki told Newsweek. First, it tracks how much time clinicians save by using the AI tool. Traditionally, nurses and oncologists had to spend 1-2 hours looking through a patient chart and determining how to prepare them for treatment, Laraki said. Using AI, they can craft the same plan in just 15 minutes. Additionally, Color Health measures how, when and why clinicians opt to change the output of the AI model. The company's most recent data shows that physicians choose to make changes in less than two percent of the clinical decision factors suggested by the model. Most of those changes had to do with formatting, Laraki added; the model has an error rate under one percent. "It's performing way better than anything that we've seen published so far," Laraki said. "And it's not because we're using better models—we're using standard open AI release models—but it's because of this architecture that makes the model behave in a very predictable way." AI Health Care, Best Outcomes, Physician Satisfaction – Iodine Software At Iodine Software, impact is measured in reimbursement gains, along with improvements in productivity and physician satisfaction, according to co-founder and CEO William Chan. The company utilizes AI to automate the middle of the revenue cycle, which traditionally requires nurses and physicians to manually collect, interpret and analyze patient data. By inserting AI into the process, Iodine Software paints a more complete clinical picture for insurance companies, ultimately resulting in fewer denials and more accurate reimbursements to health systems. Across all of Iodine's 1,000 hospital clients, that rightsizing yields a cumulative $2.4 billion per year, Chan told Newsweek. Iodine Software also saves time for health care providers, cutting the time spent reviewing patient case records by "at least half," Chan said. Since the AI model presents information in a concise, precise and actionable way, physicians can respond to information requests more quickly. Clarification asks that once took three days to answer have been whittled down to two hours, in some instances. "Physicians love that interaction compared to what it was previously," Chan said. Best of – Most Innovative AI Technology or Service, Extraordinary Impact in AI Innovation – Phare Bio In 2020, researchers at the Collins Lab at MIT made a landmark discovery when they used AI to identify a new class of antibiotics. Phare Bio was born from that breakthrough, and has since leveraged AI to uncover two additional novel antibiotic classes. The company's model prioritizes the superbugs identified as the most dangerous by the CDC and the WHO, and predicts drug efficacy, toxicity and pharmacokinetics with high accuracy. Phare Bio has also developed AIBiotics, a generative AI platform that designs new antibiotics. Ultimately, the company aims to improve the efficiency of antibiotic research and development, according to Dr. Akhila Kosaraju, its president and CEO. How does it measure that? Ultimately, by "taking better and fewer shots on goal," Kosaraju told Newsweek. It often costs between $1.3 and $1.5 billion to get a single drug over the finish line for FDA approval. "Those numbers are so high [because they] encompass all of the failures along the way to get to that one exceptional drug," Kosaraju said. "If we can reduce the number of shots on goal substantially, we can half or quarter the cost and time to get these drugs into clinical trials, and then ultimately to be FDA-approved." AI Education, Best Outcomes, Higher Education – MedCerts MedCerts has integrated conversational AI, generative AI and natural language processing into its training programs for health care and IT students. Now, students can interact with virtual patients who respond and adapt to their input in real time. One of the company's major innovations was an in-house AI program for certified nursing assistants (CNAs), designed to develop and assess soft skills like empathy, communication and problem-solving. Traditionally, these skills have been tough to measure—but with MedCerts' AI model, students can practice responding to high-pressure situations in a safe, yet nuanced environment. Student engagement is a primary indicator of an educational tool's impact, according to Dana Janssen, MedCerts' chief product officer. AI has enabled the company to give students a more interactive experience and bolster their chances of success. "One of the biggest KPIs for us is program completion, because you can't get certified and you can't get a job without first completing your programs," Janssen told Newsweek. "The more engaging we can make our content or our training—the more interactive—the more effective it ultimately is." To see the full list of AI Impact winners, visit the official page for Newsweek's AI Impact Awards. Newsweek will continue the conversation on meaningful AI innovations at our AI Impact Summit from June 23 to 25 in Sonoma, California. Click here to follow along on the live blog.

Yahoo

7 hours ago

• Yahoo

Why does humidity make hot days feel worse?

(WHTM) — Everybody knows, it's the humidity that gets you. But why is that? Humidity, which is a measure of the air's water vapor content, is no stranger in the Midstate. It feels sticky, heavy and — on the hottest days — suffocating. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now This is because high humidity blocks an important function for the human body: sweating. The body's natural way of cooling itself off is, of course, sweating. When sweat evaporates, it reduces the body's temperature. But the National Weather Service says this cannot happen when humidity is high. When the atmospheric moisture content increases, the service said, the rate of evaporation off the body decreases. 'In other words, the human body feels warmer in humid conditions,' the service said. Forecasters measure this effect with the heat index. It's a blend of the air temperature and relative humidity percentage, and it shows what the temperature outside actually feels like to the human body. So, it's not just the humidity that gets you. abc27 Weather: Harrisburg Weather, Current Conditions & Forecasts Extreme heat is when heat and humidity with temperatures higher than 90 degrees Fahrenheit lasts for at least two to three days, according to Ready PA. Extreme heat is responsible for the most weather-related deaths each year, the agency said. So, it recommends taking some precautions: Drink water to stay hydrated Take cool showers or baths Dress in loose-fitting fitting, lightweight and light-colored clothing Stay indoors and limit exposure to the sun Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.