Asthma is a condition which is most associated with children and though it’s more than possible for adults to suffer from it too, most grow out of it before they reach maturity. It’s a chronic, inflammatory respiratory condition which affects the bronchioles in your lungs. Asthma causes an increased level of mucus to build up in the lungs which can cause a lessened lung capacity and difficulty breathing. The real issue emerges when an asthmatic patient comes into contact with an outside allergen as this can set off a massive allergic reaction. These are known as asthma attacks and could potentially kill the sufferer by causing their airways to close up!
In a recent study carried out in the UK it was shown that children who were born with low birth weights were no more likely to contract asthma than anyone else is. This is great news to mothers everywhere who I’m sure have been concerned about their babies’ wellbeing since being told that this was a possibility. There were 4,000 children in the study and around 200 had a low birth weight, with the rest being at a normal birth weight.
Those born under the normal weight had a 7% chance to contract asthma and those of a normal weight had a 5% risk of contracting the chronic condition. These percentages are so close to one another that researchers concluded birth weight has nothing at all to do with a child’s chance at contracting asthma. As this study was such a large study the correlations shown are fairly conclusive.
One thing this study doesn’t do is get us any closer to understanding what the root cause of asthma actually is. When we finally work that one out there’ll be steps which can be taken to prevent children getting it in the first place. Hopefully more studies like this will help us learn.
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