Meta Analysis Confirms Greater Asthma Risk from Asthmatic Mothers vs. Fathers
Lester Kobzik, M.D.
Harvard School of Public Health
R01ES017588
Results from a meta-analysis and systematic review of 33 studies published from 1966-2009 confirm that maternal asthma imparts a greater risk of offspring asthma than does paternal asthma. Many studies of the studies had reached this conclusion independently; however there were some studies that reached the opposite conclusion. Given this disparity, the research team conducted the meta-analysis to determine the authenticity and size of the maternal effect.
These studies involved greater than 250,000 participants. The final conclusion is that children with asthmatic mothers were 3.04 times more likely to develop asthma than those with non-asthmatic mothers. Children with asthmatic fathers were 2.44 times more likely to develop the disease. The statistical significance of the trend disappeared with analysis of the studies in which asthma was diagnosed by a physician and when the children in the studies were 5 years or older. However, in all analyses, the trend that maternal asthma imparted a greater risk than paternal asthma remained the same.
The findings from this analysis are consistent with animal studies demonstrating that maternal exposures can induce asthma susceptibility in offspring, and support the notion that additional research is necessary to elucidate the mechanism for this maternal effect.
Citation: Lim RH, Kobzik L, Dahl M. Risk for asthma in offspring of asthmatic mothers versus fathers: a meta-analysis. PLoS One. 2010 Apr;12;5(4):e10134.
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