Is there a link between asthma and paracetamol?
A study conducted by researchers from New Zeeland and published in Clinical and Experimental Allergy journal, discovered a certain link between the use of paracetamol for babies and the risk of developing asthma.
Asthma is a chronic disease described by inflammatory airways in response to environmental externs. One of the most known symptoms is the shortness of breath. The disease can have a wide variety of causes among which the most popular are allergies, environmental or genetically factors.
Around the world, there are approximately 300 million people suffering from this disease.
The researchers of this study used a large group of people to follow upon a number of years in order to track and come up with any possible relationship between the use of paracetamol and the risk of developing asthma
The researchers recruited 1.105 pregnant women between 1997 and 2001. These women have been given questionnaires during the pregnancy period and also after, until the child reached the age of six.
The children have been also examined during different times of their childhood, respectively at three months, 15 months and at the age of six. During these years, mothers have been asked to answer certain questions regarding some of the main symptoms related to asthma such as wheezing, fever, rhinitis or other weird rashes. The three examinations over the children related to taking samples in order to observe the development of allergies to certain external factors such as milk or dog hair, cat etc.
The two centers in New Zeeland performing this study tried to measure the children's atopy (predisposition for certain allergies without the latter being necessarily present) and the link to the amount of paracetamol used during the growth of the child.
The results showed that children, who were given paracetamol before 15 months, had a higher three times higher risk of developing allergies and asthma at six years.
However, researchers say that these results do not show a clear connection between paracetamol and the risk of developing asthma. They show indeed a higher risk of developing this disease for babies who were given a higher amount of paracetamol and without respecting the doctor indications, to develop some sort of allergy by the age of 6.
