Increased smoking may be linked to asthma epidemic

By Charnicia Huggins

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - More adults, especially women, are smoking these days and their secondhand smoke may be contributing to the asthma epidemic among children in the United States, results of a study suggest.

"This is the first study to suggest, and provide evidence consistent with the hypothesis that the parallel increase in smoking, especially among women who are primary caregivers, may explain the increase in asthma in children via increased exposure to ETS (environmental tobacco smoke) over time," Dr. Renee D. Goodwin, of Columbia University in New York City, told Reuters Health.

"It is conceivable that greater efforts to protect children from exposure to secondhand smoke, from birth onwards, may be effective in starting to prevent asthma in children and ultimately decrease the direction of this epidemic," she added.

There has been a 3-fold increase in the prevalence of childhood asthma over the past 30 years, for unknown reasons, particularly in industrialized nations, studies show. Currently, more than 15 million children experience daily secondhand tobacco exposure at home and almost 5 million children in the US under the age of 18 are known to have asthma.

Goodwin investigated whether increased cigarette smoking, particularly among women, after World War II may have indirectly contributed to the increasing asthma epidemic among children.

The researcher examined data on 4,500 children who were involved in the National Health Interview Survey and compared it with data from the American Lung Association on cigarette use in the United States from 1900 to 2003.

As suspected, Goodwin found that rates of cigarette use during the past century increased along with rates of childhood asthma.

For example, for each consecutive year from 1980 to 1995, there was an estimated 5 percent annual increase in the overall prevalence of asthma among children, and this increase was particularly evident among 5- to 10-year olds, Goodwin notes in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.