By Michael Smith, MedPage Today Staff Writer
Reviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco
March 14, 2006
Source News Article: BBC News, Forbes
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 14, 2006 – Antibiotic exposure in the first year of a child’s life appears to double the risk of developing asthma later, according to a meta-analysis.
There appeared to be a dose-response, with the more antibiotics in the first year being associated with a greater the risk of later asthma, reported Carlo Marra, Pharm.D., Ph.D., of the University of British Columbia and colleagues in the March issue of CHEST.
Asthma has become the most common chronic disease of childhood, and its increase has coincided with an increase in the use of antibiotics in young children, the researchers pointed out. This has led to the suggestion that the two phenomena are causally linked, although epidemiological evidence is unclear.