Causes of pre-school wheeze from large-scale Swedish study

 

A study in Sweden looked at over 4,000 children who had three or more episodes of wheeze over the last year, including those who did and did not use asthma medication. The types of wheeze were broken down into different categories, such as those who developed wheeze when they had a cold, and those who wheezed when they did not have colds and were possibly reacting to allergens.

The study found that eating fish before the age of nine months reduced the prevalence of wheeze by almost half. Treatment with broad-spectrum antibiotics in the first week of life was associated with double the risk of recurrent wheeze at age four-and-a-half. Taking paracetamol during pregnancy was associated with an increased risk of wheeze by 60%.

Source: Acta Paediatrica - Paracetamol

Source: Acta Paediatrica - Fish & antibiotics

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First Published in November 2011

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