A latest study reports that kids with asthma are more likely to experience worsening symptoms of asthma due to life events like moving or family relationships.
60 children who had asthma for at least three years were studied . None had a history of chronic stress. Over 18 months, kids kept asthma diaries, recording asthma attacks and results of peak flow tests, which measured their breathing strength. Both kids and their parents were interviewed regularly to identify stressful events in the children’s lives, including births, deaths, illnesses and hospitalizations not involving asthma, separations, changes in family relationships, and moving.About 360 acute asthma episodes developed during the study, and about 124 negative life events occurred. Experiencing stress quadrupled the chances a child would have an acute attack within a day or two of the stressful event. The stress also had a lasting effect on the children, causing them to have another acute attack five to seven weeks after the initial attack.
Thus researchers say further research should be done to assess the role stress plays in asthma, both in the short-term and over the long haul, along with investigations to distinguish between stimuli or events that cause stress and those more likely to be temporarily increasing physiological arousal, and to consider factors such as duration of the stress and levels of chronic adversity.
