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No link between parental IBD, asthma risk in offspring
Children born to parents with a history of inflammatory bowel disease are not at increased risk of developing asthma, according to recent results.
Researchers evaluated data from 1,845,281 children born in Denmark between 1979 and 2009 collected from the Danish Medical Birth Registry, including 14,952 with a parent with IBD according to the Danish National Registry of Parents. Diagnoses of IBD and asthma within the cohort were observed and compared between those with and without parents with IBD.
Over a median follow-up of 14.9 years, asthma was diagnosed in 106,939 children, including 856 with parental IBD. Children of parents without IBD had a 2.3% chance of developing asthma over 2 years and a 5% risk over 10 years, compared with 2.8% and 5.6%, respectively, among those with a parent with ulcerative colitis (UC), and 3.7% and 6.9% among those with a parent with Crohn’s disease (CD).
Investigators calculated an adjusted incidence rate ratio for asthma of 0.98 (0.91-1.04) among those with any parental IBD; 0.92 (0.84-1) in cases with parental UC and 1.09 (0.98-1.22) for those with parental CD. Asthma risk was higher among those with mothers admitted at least twice for CD during their pregnancy (aIRR=1.74, 1.03-2.94), but a similar association was not observed among those with maternal UC (95% CI for all).
Whether IBD was present in the mother or father did not significantly impact results, nor did stratification by calendar period or the inclusion of antiasthma medication use as an indicator of asthma. Initiating follow-up at 5 years of age within the cohort eliminated the significance of the association between maternal CD admission and asthma risk.
“Epidemiologic studies of IBD and asthma in the same individual suggested the presence of an association, and this evidence provided the rationale for this study,” the researchers wrote. “… Although IBD and asthma may be associated in individuals, the overall findings of our study reassuringly suggest that IBD in a parent does not increase the risk of asthma in offspring.”
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.