Childhood Lung Problems Increase Adult Asthma

Underscoring the importance of early-childhood events for later asthma is a study from the University of Arizona, Tucson.

Fernando D. Martinez, MD, director of the Arizona Respiratory Center at the University of Arizona, and colleagues followed 849 children from birth to age 22.

Those with adult asthma were:

• 7.4 times more likely to have had childhood asthma
• 14 times more likely to have had persistent wheezing as children
• 3.6 times more likely to have had a childhood mold allergy
• Twice as likely to have had low airway function at age 6

More than 70% of the adults who had adult asthma were women.

"We conclude that asthma that apparently develops early in adult life affects mainly women and is commonly the clinical expression of latent changes of airway responses that are present in the preschool years," the researchers conclude.

The Beasley and Martinez studies, and Barr's editorial, appear in the Sept. 20 issue of The Lancet.