Asthma, Allergy Risks Heightened With Early-Life Antibiotic Use
Early-life antibiotic use is associated with an increased risk of allergic diseases in young children, results of a new study show.
Findings were presented at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology/World Allergy Organization Joint Congress 2018, which is taking place from March 2 to 5, 2018, in Orlando, Florida.
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For the study, Soo Whan Kim, of the Catholic University of Korea in Seoul, and colleagues assessed 5,626,328 children and adolescents with available data from the National Health Insurance Service database from 2006 to 2015.
Specifically, the effects of early-life antibiotic use on later development of atopic dermatitis, allergic rhinitis, and asthma were investigated. Three models were used for the analysis.
According to multiple logistic regression findings, a longer duration of antibiotic exposure was associated with increasing trends in the incidence of atopic dermatitis, asthma, and allergic rhinitis. Results also indicated that allergic diseases were more common in boys younger than age 10 years, as well as individuals living in urban areas and with higher incomes.
Kim noted that significant differences across allergic disease groups occurred based on annual mean antibiotic prescription days.
“Antibiotic use in earlier life is associated with an increased risk of allergic diseases especially in young children, and the risk [has] duration-dependent elevation,” Kim concluded. “Moreover, urban resistant showed [a stronger] association with exposure duration.”
—Christina Vogt
Reference:
Kim SW. The effect of antibiotics in children and adolescent developing asthma and allergic diseases. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2018;141(2):AB8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaci.2017.12.024.