Paracetamol doubles asthma risk by age of 6

BABIES given paracetamol are twice as likely to develop asthma by the age of six, research shows.

And children given paracetamol in the first 15 months are also at a much higher risk of developing allergies when they are older.

The study, published in the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Allergy, adds to growing evidence linking paracetamol to an increased incidence of asthma — the commonest chronic disease in childhood in Ireland.

Researchers studied 505 infants and 914 five- and six-year-old children in Christchurch, New Zealand, to see if they developed signs of asthma or allergic sensitivity.

Lead researcher and author of the report, Julian Crane— a professor at Otago University in Wellington — said clinical trials were necessary to establish if the link was causal because a large amount of paracetamol was given to young children.

While wary of scaring parents, Prof Crane acknowledged he had shifted from being “sceptical” to being more “convinced” of a connection.

However, he stressed the benefits of paracetamol far outweighed the risks so parents should continue to give it to their children.

“The major finding is that children who used paracetamol before the age of 15 months (90%) were more than three times as likely to become sensitised to allergens and twice as likely to develop symptoms of asthma at six years than children not using paracetamol.”

Asthma nurse specialist with the Asthma Society of Ireland, Frances Guiney, said there had been a lot of previous studies suggesting a link between paracetamol and asthma — that paracetamol made a child’s body more vulnerable to inflammations and allergies.

“We still have not established that paracetamol does cause asthma. What we do know is a high temperature is very dangerous and that paracetamol is safe and effective when the recommended dose is followed.”

- www.asthmasociety.ie

Asthma facts

ASTHMA is the most common chronic disease in childhood and the most common respiratory condition in Ireland. Approximately 470,000 adults and children are affected, one in eight of the population.

Prevalence in 13/14-year-old school children increased by 40% between 1995 and 2003, from 15.2% to 21.6%.

Irish children with asthma miss around 10 school days annually.

There are about 5,500 asthma-related hospital admissions annually. About half are children younger than 14 years.

- Statistics supplied by the Asthma Society of Ireland.