Study Links Lungs' Sensitivity to Cold Air at Age 6 with Increased Risk of Asthma at Age 22

Children whose lungs are very sensitive to cold dry air when they are 6 years old are 2.5 times more likely to develop asthma by the time they are 22 than children whose lungs aren’t affected by cold air, according to a study to be presented at the American Thoracic Society International Conference on May 23rd.
The 450 children in the study were assessed at an average age of 6 to see whether breathing in cold, dry air affected their lung function. The researchers then followed up with the subjects at age 22. They found that children whose lungs were very sensitive to cold air, a reaction known as bronchial hyperresponsiveness (BHR), were more likely to have developed asthma at age 22 than children whose lungs didn’t react to the cold air, even if the children with BHR didn’t have any symptoms of asthma, such as wheezing, when they were 6.”This suggests that there is something going on in these children’s lungs at an early age that increases their risk of having asthma later in life,” says researcher Fernando Martinez, M.D., Director of the Arizona Respiratory Center at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “We need to find out what biological characteristics these children have, so that we can start developing preventive treatments.”Although it’s known that bronchial hyperresponsiveness, or airways that become “twitchy” in response to a trigger such as cold air, smoke or dust, is a central feature of asthma, until now scientists haven’t known how early in life this is established.”By the time a child has developed symptoms of asthma and we try to intervene, the boat has left the port,” Dr. Martinez said. “We’ve shown that there are markers for increased risk of asthma in the lungs by age 6. We don’t know exactly what’s going on in the lungs yet, but the findings give us hope that one day we will be able to intervene early, before a child’s asthma develops.”(Source: University of Arizona: Arizona Respiratory Center: October 2006.)