Your Kids, Dogs & Antibiotics - How They Relate To Asthma
According to an article in CityNews - June 11, 2007,
Want to keep your kids from getting asthma? Don't give them antibiotics for non-respiratory infections. And get a dog. Those are the conclusions of a new Canadian study, which suggests that giving kids the pills they need when they're sick may be one reason they develop asthma later on.
"Antibiotics are prescribed mostly for respiratory tract infections, yet respiratory symptoms can be a sign of future asthma," explains lead author Anita Kozyrskyj of the University of Manitoba. "This may make it difficult to attribute antibiotic use to asthma development. Our study reported on antibiotic use in children being treated for non-respiratory tract infections, which distinguishes the effect of the antibiotic."
The Manitoba-McGill University study, which looked at 13,000 children from birth to age seven, showed that those who were given the infection fighting drugs for common ailments like middle ear or urinary infections during the first year of their life were significantly more likely to have asthma by age 7. And the more antibiotics they had, the more the risk of asthma went up.
Family history played a role, too. Antibiotic-using kids whose mothers never had asthma were found to be twice as likely to get the disease as those who never had any of the drugs at all. "The study's an interesting one," agrees asthma specialist Dr. Kenneth Chapman. "It supports something called the 'hygiene hypothesis.'" That argues that some bacteria and germs are actually needed by a baby's maturing immune system. "Maybe if you clean up the environment and get rid of a few bacteria, your immune system does things you don't want it to do, like develop asthma," he muses.
And what about the dog? It turns out they can do more than guard against intruders and be loving pets. The asthma risk doubled in families who didn't have a canine in the home. Why? "Dogs bring germs into the home, and it is thought that this exposure is required for the infant's immune system to develop normally," explains Kozyrskyj. "Exposure to germs is lower in the absence of a dog. The administration of an antibiotic may further reduce this exposure and increase the likelihood of asthma development."
It's not the first time a study has shown the correlation between a bug fighting drug and the breathing restriction - a B.C. study conducted last year on 12,000 kids came to a similar conclusion.