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Parent’s mental state may affect the childhood asthma

by Medindia Content Team on Jun 13 2005 11:19 AM

Researcher from Columbian University has been able to link the parental mental health with the childhood atopic disorders like asthma.

Atopic disorders are those disorders that are caused by inherited health reasons. These lead to the children being more inclined to develop certain allergic reactions like hay fever, asthma, or chronic urticaria if they are exposed to the allergens that can specifically cause these health hazards.

After looking into the health records of 9240 parent child pairs, research says that major depression and panic attacks in the parent can increase the risk of having atopic disorders in children. This is especially true for mother children relationships. Severe anxiety attacks or depressions can make children more at risk to asthma and similar atopic syndromes. The children of mothers who had severe depressions are at 67% increased risk of an asthmatic attacks than other children, while the risk was 46% more for children of mothers who suffer from sever panic attacks when compared with other children. The researcher feels that the findings of the study lend support to the theory of shared genetic liability hypothesis that links childhood atopic disorders with parental depression and panic disorders.


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