Asthma is the most common long-term medical condition that affects children. The precise cause of the disorder, which causes inflammation of the airways, is not yet known but there are identifiable triggers, which in children are typically seen as allergic reactions.
Now a new study has identified cockroaches as one of the biggest contributors to asthma in children who live in cities and urban areas. The risk of developing an allergy to the insects by the age of 7 is high in children who are exposed to certain types of air pollution, while children who are known to have a common mutation in a gene known as GSTM are particularly at risk of an allergic reaction to cockroaches.
A team from the Columbia Centre carried out research into the effects of the pest on children’s health for Children’s Environmental Health at the Mailman School of Public Health in New York. Their findings were published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
The research looked at almost 350 mothers and children from two urban areas of New York who were exposed to cockroach allergen in the shape of faeces, saliva and insect remnants. Air samples were taken to measure exposure to harmful components of air pollution known as PAH.
The study concluded that an allergy to cockroaches presents one of the highest risk factors for asthma in children who live in low-income urban communities, linked to exposure to certain types of air pollution and allergies early in life. Developing an allergic reaction to cockroaches can increase the risk of those children then going to develop asthma. The risks were even greater in those children who showed the common mutation of the GSTM gene, a mutation thought to be instrumental in how the body reacts to PAH.
The researchers recommend that minimising the exposure to harmful air pollution and to cockroach allergen could reduce the instances of cockroach allergies and asthma in urban children.
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