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Associations between pre-pregnancy obesity and asthma symptoms in adolescents

September 30, 2011 Comments off

Associations between pre-pregnancy obesity and asthma symptoms in adolescents
Source: Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health

What is already known on this subject

  • The increased and high prevalence of children’s asthma symptoms, worldwide, is unexplained.
  • Rapidly changing environmental factors that go beyond genetic predisposition are likely to explain the increase in asthma prevalence.

What this study adds

  • Prenatal exposure to maternal overweight and obesity is an important risk of asthma symptoms later in life through to adolescence, after controlling for numerous relevant confounders.
  • Our results suggest that maternal overweight and obesity prior to pregnancy may programme the risk of asthma symptoms in their adolescent offspring and be a new target for prevention of adolescents’ asthma and wheeze if the associations are causal.

See: Overweight Mothers Increase Asthma Risk for Their Children (Science Daily)

Categories: adolescents, children and families, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, obesity, respiratory diseases

Associations between pre-pregnancy obesity and asthma symptoms in adolescents

August 18, 2011 Comments off

Associations between pre-pregnancy obesity and asthma symptoms in adolescents
Source: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health

Background The high prevalence of children’s asthma symptoms, worldwide, is unexplained. We examined the relation between maternal pre-pregnancy weight and body mass index (BMI), and asthma symptoms in adolescents.

Methods Data from 6945 adolescents born within the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1986 were used. Prospective antenatal and birth outcome data, including maternal pre-pregnancy weight and BMI, and asthma symptoms in adolescent offspring at age 15–16 years, were employed. Logistic regression analyses were performed to examine the associations between relevant prenatal factors and asthma symptoms during adolescence.

Results Current wheeze (within the past year) was reported by 10.6% of adolescents, and physician-diagnosed asthma by 6.0%. High maternal pre-pregnancy BMI was a significant predictor of wheeze in the adolescents (increase per kilogram per square metre unit; 2.7%, 95% CI 0.9 to 4.4 for ever wheeze; 3.5%, 95% CI 1.3 to 5.8 for current wheeze), and adjusting for potential confounders further increased the risk (2.8%, 95% CI 0.5 to 5.1; 4.7%, 95% CI 1.9 to 7.7, respectively). High maternal pre-pregnancy weight, in the top tertile, also significantly increased the odds of current wheeze in the adolescent by 20% (95% CI 4 to 39), and adjusting for potential confounders further increased the risk (OR=1.52, 95% CI 1.19 to 1.95). Results were similar for current asthma. Furthermore, these significant associations were observed only among adolescents without parental history of atopy but not among those with parental history of atopy.

Conclusions The association demonstrated here between maternal pre-pregnancy overweight and obesity, and asthma symptoms in adolescents suggests that increase in asthma may be partly related to the rapid rise in obesity in recent years.

Categories: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, obesity, reproductive health, respiratory diseases

For peace and pain: the medical legitimisation of Afghanistan’s poppy crop

April 8, 2011 Comments off

For peace and pain: the medical legitimisation of Afghanistan’s poppy crop
Source: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health

Since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, there has been an overall increase in illicit opium production in Afghanistan and mounting human losses. The United Nations has attributed 1 million human deaths to Afghan opiates over the past decade. As the war in Afghanistan nears a crucial mark, the NATO coalition forces and Afghan people can no longer afford the same ineffective counternarcotics strategy. This commentary proposes a strategic revision that reframes Afghanistan’s poppy problem as an opportunity for global public health. Specifically, The Afghan poppy crop could be repurposed away from illicit drug production, and towards manufacturing licit opioid analgesics to address unmet needs for pain palliation, particularly for diseases such as HIV/AIDS and cancer in the developing world—that is, illegal opium could be converted into legal pain medicine, solving two problems at once. We present a supply-and-demand that illustrates how this useful exchange could be made, and discuss the political opposition that now stands in the way and perpetuates the unsatisfactory status quo in Afghanistan.

Categories: Afghanistan, drug abuse, drugs, health and health care, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, prescription drugs
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