Lifestyle
Abuse linked to childhood asthma
By Sue Mueller
Sep 1, 2008 - 10:02:42 AM

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MONDAY September 1, 2008 (foodconsumer.org) -- Children who experience physical or sexual abuse would have a higher chance of developing asthma than those who do not, according to a new study published in the first issue for September of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

The study of urban children in Puerto Rico showed children physically or sexually abused were more than twice as likely to have asthma as their peers who were not.

American Thoracic Society states in a release "In fact, physical and sexual abuse was second only to maternal asthma in all the risk factors tested, including paternal asthma and indicators of socioeconomic status."

"We already know that there is a high prevalence of asthma in Puerto Rican children, and many studies have linked stress and exposure to violence to health problems in childhood, including asthma," said principal investigator, Juan C. Celedón, M.D., Dr.P.H. of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston

In the study, the researchers surveyed 1,353 parent-child pairs between 2001 and 2003 and re-surveyed nearly 90 percent of the participants two years later for stress, violence, diagnosis of asthma, and treatment the children experienced.

"Children with a history of abuse had higher frequencies of all outcomes of interest than those without a history of abuse," wrote Dr. Robyn T. Cohen, M.D., M.P.H., lead author of the paper.

"After adjusting for relevant covariates, history of abuse was associated with an approximate doubling of the odds of current asthma, healthcare use for asthma, and allergic rhinitis."

Specifically, 15 of the 75 children (20%) with a history of abuse had current asthma compared to 128 of 1,117 children (11.5%) without history of abuse had current asthma.

The researchers speculated that abuse results in altering the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis in a way that it may depress the glucocorticoid response, decreasing suppression of airway inflammatory responses.   Early studies have found evidence that seems to support this theory.