Links To Asthma

[minks]

Florrie wrote: *Children whose mothers smoked while pregnant were one-and -a-half times more likely to develope asthma early in life than children whose mothers did not smoke.

*Children whose Grandmothers smoked were more than twice as likely (2.1 times) to develop asthma.

*Even if the childs mother did not smoke while she was pregnant - but the child's grandmother did - the child has nearly double the risk (1.8 times) of developing asthma.

*If both the mother and grandmother smoked while pregnant, a child is more than two - and - a - half times more likely to develop asthma.

Chemicals from tobacco can affect in two ways. a) If the child is a girl, her eggs may be affected putting future children at risk. b) The foetus' DNA in the mitochondra may be damaged through subtle changes in which genes are turned on or off and transmitted through the maternal line.

It is these alterations which decrease the bodys immune function and reduce the body's ability to rid itself of toxins, thus increasing the risk of asthma in smokers' children and grandchildren.

*University of Southern California. Chest 2005; 127, 4: 1232-1241)


That is most interesting as my mother never ever smoked and I have asthma and we could never figure out the link? But my grandmother was an extremely heavy smoker. Thanks for that Florrie.

[jahamaa]

Florrie, my brother and I are news junkies and we've seen the news reports on the epidemic of asthma hitting our nation.

We are also 4th generation home builders in our area, our great grandfather started building barns decades ago.

What this has to do with asthma is that we know insulation is a product that has been around for a relativly short time, also we no longer use wood to build our homes. Everything is composits of wood chips and glue, even the new laminate floors, What we were wondering is could there be a connection between new homes that are now being built air tight ( a new phenomena) and off gassing of all these new glue based products (because new homes actually are built of glue) and the asthma?

As there certainly seems to be with tobacco smoke.