Researchers have found that infants who are given antibiotics in the first year of life are twice as likely to develop childhood asthma as those who don't take the drugs.
In addition, a new study that synthesized results from previously published research found that the use of multiple antibiotics in infants appeared to further increase their risk of developing asthma.
"Although the causal nature between antibiotics and asthma is still unclear, our overall results show that treatment with at least one antibiotic as an infant appears to be associated with the development of childhood asthma," said Carlo Marra, a professor of pharmacy at the University of British Columbia and the lead author of the study. It appeared Monday in Chest, the journal of the American College of Chest Physicians.
Several studies involving several hundred to several thousand youngsters have pointed to a link between antibiotic use and asthma in recent years, but they have come under criticism for being too small, for relying on imprecise records on past antibiotic use, or for not considering the possible effect of respiratory infections.
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By combining results from seven studies, including four that monitored antibiotic use from birth, the new analysis included more than 12,000 children, including more than 1,800 with childhood asthma.
While infants overall who were exposed to at least one antibiotic were twice as likely to develop childhood asthma, the odds were significantly higher — 2.8 times greater — in studies that looked back at drug use and illness, compared with 1.1 times greater in the studies that looked at use from birth.
A second analysis looked at results from five studies that measured how many courses of antibiotics an infant received. It found that the odds of asthma increased 1.1 times for each additional round of drugs taken.
Other researchers studying the antibiotics-asthma link have proposed that early dosing with the drugs upset the development of infants' immune systems, making them more likely to respond to allergens or other asthma triggers.
In the Tucson area, about one of every 10 residents — 95,000 people — suffers from asthma, a chronic lung disease marked by episodes of difficulty breathing, which can be fatal. That makes Tucson one of the nation's top five "asthma hot spots," according to recent studies. Phoenix also is on that list.
Arizona's warm, dry climate has attracted respiratory sufferers for generations, building a population genetically predisposed toward asthma and other lung problems, experts have said. The problem is intensified by our prolonged allergy season.
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