Media
2007-07-03
July 2007
Global attention on AllerGen researcher
AllerGen Principal Investigator Dr. Anita Kozyrskyj is the object of worldwide media attention as the lead author in a recent study published in CHEST Journal. The study is co-authored by colleagues Dr. Pierre Ernst and Dr. Allan Becker.
The study, Increased risk of childhood asthma from antibiotic use in early life, shows that children who have taken more than four courses of antibiotics before their first birthday are 1.5 times more likely to suffer from asthma by the age of seven. The investigation also supports results from previous studies suggesting children living in homes with a dog are less likely to have asthma. It reports a two-fold increased risk of asthma following antibiotic use in children not exposed to a dog within their first year of life.
Kozyrskyj says that although the associations under study are not new - such as the use of antibiotics in infants; children living in households with dogs as opposed to those without; and children living in rural versus urban settings - some of the findings are surprising.
"The results contradict some previous studies of urban and high-risk children," she says. Past studies show that children from rural settings are "protected" from a high prevalence of asthma, but Kozyrskyj found that the association between antibiotic use and asthma was greater in rural than urban children.
"Our results show that rural children are more likely to be treated with broad-spectrum antibiotics in the first year of life than their urban counterparts. In turn, rural children experienced a higher instance of asthma by the age of seven."
Kozyrskyj says that the study is not indicative of rural children receiving poor quality medical treatment. She speculates that the more frequent use of broad-spectrum antibiotic treatments among rural children may be due to the lack of immediate access that those children have to doctors.
"Doctors may not see their young rural patients as often as those in urban areas, so they may look to broad-spectrum antibiotics to ensure that children fully recover from illness."
The study, using Manitoba's province-wide healthcare databases, has garnered global attention from media from as far as Germany and Australia.
Informing AllerGen's birth cohort study
While this project was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Kozyrskyj says results from this study may potentially inform AllerGen-supported research.
"There's the possibility of pursuing the same study on children recruited for AllerGen's birth cohort initiative, the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development study," she says.
Currently, Kozyrskyj is the Principal Investigator on an AllerGen-funded study, Maternal stress in early childhood and the development of asthma.
AllerGen, a national research network, is funded through the federal Networks of Centres of Excellence program. The Networks of Centres of Excellence Canada is a joint initiative of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and Industry Canada.