Boys more prone to asthma than girls

Boys may be more likely than girls to have childhood asthma, but when compared to girls, they are also more likely to grow out of it in adolescence, new US research has revealed.

Boys were also found to have decreased incidence of asthma after adolescence.

The findings indicate that there may be a buried mechanism in asthma development.

“We wanted to investigate what was behind the observed sex differences in asthma rates and analysed airway responsiveness (AR),” explained Dr Kelan G Tantisira of Harvard Medical School. The study is the first to examine the natural history of sex differences in asthma.

More than 1,000 children with mild to moderate asthma participated in the study over a period of about nine years. The researchers were able to identify a clear pattern in the differences between boys and girls.

“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.

The researchers are now hoping to continue following these children and ascertain the severity of their asthma in adulthood.

The results of the study were published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

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[Posted: Sat 16/08/2008]