Asthma Outgrown by Most Boys

An asthma study released in August 2008 has found that while boys are more likely to wheeze in early childhood, they are also more likely to shed these symptoms when they become adolescents.

What about girls?  The study showed that they were more wheeze-free until the age of about 10 to 12 and then asthma gradually began to be a problem right through adulthood.

More than 9 million American children have asthma, with a 30% higher prevalence among boys than girls.  This trend switches in adulthood when women with asthma outnumber men by 40%, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

The recent study was conducted by lead researcher, Kelan G. Tantisira, M.D. of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. It included over 1,000 children from 5 to 12 years old with mild to moderate persistent asthma. ”While our results were not unexpected, they do point to intriguing potential mechanisms, to explain the gender differences in asthma incidence and severity. Especially intriguing is that the differences in gender begin at the time of transition into early puberty,” said  Dr. Tantisira. This study was the first time that the gender difference in asthma has been documented.

So what does this mean to you, especially if you have a daughter with asthma?  It tells you to be on the watch for increased symptoms around the beginning of puberty and check in with your allergist for possible revised or additional treatment.

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