- GM's Agreement to Sell Saab Unit Falls Apart
- Consumer Confidence Improves But Still Shaky
- US Home Prices Up 5th Month, 2nd Straight Quarter
- FDIC Fund Falls into The Red, Bair Urges Lending
- Ron Paul's Plan to Audit Fed a 'Serious Attack': Mishkin
- Strong Banks, Weak Credit: Treasury Rethinks TARP
- Fairfax Lawsuit Keeps Heat on Chanos, SAC's Cohen
- Blog: Behind The Scenes With Warren Buffett
- Buyers Look For Bargains At Luxury Condo Auction
- Markets Can Rise 5-10% in the Near-Term: Strategist
- Busch: The Debt-Interest Rate Paradox
- The Lloyd's Prayer, Leggo My Eggo, Plate Hate & Your Emails
- Buy These 'Competitively Positioned' Stocks: Portfolio Manager
- Behind The Scenes With Warren Buffett
- 'Why the American Consumer Will Keep on Buying No Matter What'
- On Assignment: Europe & Asia
- The L.A. Extravaganza: A Test for Auto Shows
- 8 Stocks That Could Gain With Rising GDP
- Smart Spending: When Black Friday is worth effort
- RGC Resources increases quarterly dividend
- Va. man pleads guilty in mortgage loan scheme
- Zale posts wider 1Q loss but beats Street forecast
- Texas AG nixes extra $500 for retired educators
- Zions shares fall; analyst affirms "sell" rating
- Genesco 3Q profit rises, lifts 2010 forecast
- Montana grain growers seek to mediate with BNSF
- Fred's 3Q profit falls 17 pct despite sales rise
Text Size 
NEW YORK - Children who are overweight at age 6 to 7 years are at increased risk for having symptoms of asthma like shortness of breath and "twitchy" airways when they are 8 years old, results of a study conducted in the Netherlands show.
However, children who are overweight at a younger age but reach a normal weight by age 6 to 7 do not appear to have an increased risk for asthma symptoms, according to the study.
"These findings suggest that being overweight may affect a child's development of asthma symptoms," Dr. Salome Scholtens from the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in Bilthoven told Reuters Health.
"However, if a previously overweight child develops a normal weight, then the asthma symptoms are less likely to persist. We propose that development of a normal weight might positively affect asthma symptoms in overweight children," Scholtens added.
Each year until the age of 8, Scholtens and colleagues had the parents of 3756 children report their children's weight and any episodes of wheezing or other breathing difficulties as well as the use of inhaled steroids. The researchers tested the children to see how sensitive their airways were to various inhaled allergens.
When the children were 8 years old, 275 (7.3 percent) wheezed, 361 (9.6 percent) had difficulty breathing and 268 (7.1 percent) had a prescription for an inhaled steroid in the preceding year.
According to the investigators, children who were persistently heavy from a very young age and between age 6 to 7 years were 68 percent more likely to have breathing difficulties and 66 percent more likely to have twitchy airways at age 8 than children who were leaner in childhood.
As mentioned, children who were heavier at a very young age, but who developed a normal weight at age 6 to 7 did not have an increased risk of breathing difficulties.
These findings suggest that being overweight in early childhood does not have a lasting effect on breathing difficulties if the child develops a normal weight by 8 years old.
The writers of a commentary published with the study in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology call the findings "encouraging."
Print
Email
- Remember when auto shows were major events where new models could generate buzz?
- A diet high in fat and sugar might actually be good for your portfolio.
- A new McDonald's in Manhattan is the nation's first to sport a sleek, chic interior imported from stores in London and Paris.
- One shopper explains why he gets up at 3am on the day after Thanksgiving to go shopping every year.
- From the AIG&T to the Merrill Lychee, Jane Wells lists this year's holiday cocktails.
- For nearly three decades, these on-call experts have been dishing advice on how to – and not to – cook turkey.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes