A twin study of early-childhood asthma in Puerto Ricans.
<h4>Background</h4>The relative contributions of genetics and environment to asthma in Hispanics or to asthma in children younger than 3 years are not well understood.<h4>Objective</h4>To examine the relative contributions of genetics and environment to early-childhood asthma...
Guardado en:
| Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Formato: | article |
| Lenguaje: | EN |
| Publicado: |
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2013
|
| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | https://doaj.org/article/c62d4e45b77f470f9fe294542018f90f |
| Etiquetas: |
Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
|
| Sumario: | <h4>Background</h4>The relative contributions of genetics and environment to asthma in Hispanics or to asthma in children younger than 3 years are not well understood.<h4>Objective</h4>To examine the relative contributions of genetics and environment to early-childhood asthma by performing a longitudinal twin study of asthma in Puerto Rican children ≤ 3 years old.<h4>Methods</h4>678 twin infants from the Puerto Rico Neo-Natal Twin Registry were assessed for asthma at age 1 year, with follow-up data obtained for 624 twins at age 3 years. Zygosity was determined by DNA microsatellite profiling. Structural equation modeling was performed for three phenotypes at ages 1 and 3 years: physician-diagnosed asthma, asthma medication use in the past year, and ≥ 1 hospitalization for asthma in the past year. Models were additionally adjusted for early-life environmental tobacco smoke exposure, sex, and age.<h4>Results</h4>The prevalences of physician-diagnosed asthma, asthma medication use, and hospitalization for asthma were 11.6%, 10.8%, 4.9% at age 1 year, and 34.1%, 40.1%, and 8.5% at 3 years, respectively. Shared environmental effects contributed to the majority of variance in susceptibility to physician-diagnosed asthma and asthma medication use in the first year of life (84%-86%), while genetic effects drove variance in all phenotypes (45%-65%) at age 3 years. Early-life environmental tobacco smoke, sex, and age contributed to variance in susceptibility.<h4>Conclusion</h4>Our longitudinal study in Puerto Rican twins demonstrates a changing contribution of shared environmental effects to liability for physician-diagnosed asthma and asthma medication use between ages 1 and 3 years. Early-life environmental tobacco smoke reduction could markedly reduce asthma morbidity in young Puerto Rican children. |
|---|