Exposure to pets and atopy‐related diseases in the first 4 years of life

Nafstad, Per; Magnus, Per; Gaarder, Per Ivar; Jaakkola, Jouni J. K.

doi:10.1034/j.1398-9995.2001.00881.x

Cited by 186 publications

(147 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…We did not observe an association between pet exposures and childhood asthma, findings that are consistent with several birth cohort studies (Lau et al 2000;Nafstad et al 2001;Ronmark et al 2002). Although some studies have found positive associations (McConnell et al 2002;Zheng et al 2002), others have found pets to be protective (Hesselmar et al 1999;Remes et al 2001).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Early-life environmental risk factors for asthma: findings from the Children's Health Study.

Salam

Langholz

et al. 2004

Environ Health Perspect

180

107

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Early-life experiences and environmental exposures have been associated with childhood asthma. To investigate further whether the timing of such experiences and exposures is associated with the occurrence of asthma by 5 years of age, we conducted a prevalence case-control study nested within the Children's Health Study, a population-based study of > 4,000 school-aged children in 12 southern California communities. Cases were defined as physician-diagnosed asthma by age 5, and controls were asthma-free at study entry, frequency-matched on age, sex, and community of residence and countermatched on in utero exposure to maternal smoking. Telephone interviews were conducted with mothers to collect additional exposure and asthma histories. Conditional logistic regression models were fitted to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Asthma diagnosis before 5 years of age was associated with exposures in the first year of life to wood or oil smoke, soot, or exhaust (

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Early-life environmental risk factors for asthma: findings from the Children's Health Study.

Salam

Langholz

et al. 2004

Environ Health Perspect

180

107

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Some studies have shown that there were no significant associations between pet-keeping and allergies in childhood [7][8][9] or a "protective" effect on early pet-keeping [4,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. But some other studies revealed that the "protective" effect might be confounded by parental avoidance behavior or selection of particular pet species [10,16,17]. Still other studies have had different findings and concluded that petkeeping in the home is a risk factor for allergies [2,3,[17][18][19][20][21][22].…”

mentioning

confidence: 91%

“…Although pet-keeping might increase sensitization, it could alleviate the degree of the symptoms-development [1] and prevent children from getting hay fever [6]. Some studies have shown that there were no significant associations between pet-keeping and allergies in childhood [7][8][9] or a "protective" effect on early pet-keeping [4,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. But some other studies revealed that the "protective" effect might be confounded by parental avoidance behavior or selection of particular pet species [10,16,17].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Pet-keeping and its impact on asthma and allergies among preschool children in Shanghai, China

Huang

Zou

et al. 2013

Chin. Sci. Bull.

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Whether early pet-keeping is a risk factor for children's asthma and allergies remains controversial. To investigate associations between asthma, allergies and airway symptoms among children and the indoor environment, a cross-sectional study was conducted in 5 districts of Shanghai. A number of 13335 questionnaires (response rate: 85.3%) of 4-6 year old children were analyzed. Families in urban areas have more pets except for dogs than families in suburbs. Fish are the most common pets in urban districts. The prevalence of doctor-diagnosed asthma was 10.3%, wheeze (ever) 28.3%, rhinitis (ever) 54.1%, doctor-diagnosed hay fever 12.6% and eczema (ever) 22.9%. In logistic regression analyses, early furred pet-keeping was positively associated with most of the symptoms and significantly with rhinitis (ever, adjusted OR=1.41, 95% CI=1.14-1.76) and doctor-diagnosed hay fever (1.38, 1.02-1.88). Current furred pet-keeping was significantly negatively associated with doctor-diagnosed asthma (0.57, 0.39-0.83). Persistent furred pet-keeping was significantly positively associated with rhinitis on pet or pollen exposure. However, current pet-keeping is not randomly distributed in the population. Children in families with "allergy" or with "pet avoidance behavior" (due to allergies in the family) have more symptoms, but have avoided cats and dogs, leading to the conclusion that such animals are "protective", namely the "Healthy Pet-Keeping" effect. Moreover, rodents and birds are risks for children's health. Fish-keeping is also seemingly a risk. This study indicates that early pet-keeping is a risk factor for asthma and allergies in families with a history of allergies, and part of residents in Shanghai have pet-avoidance behavior.pet, asthma, allergies, children, avoidance behavior

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“…Pet ownership has been a potential risk factor for asthma. However, considering that asthmatic families tended to avoid pet raising 15,16 and that our cross-sectional design did not allow for delineation of cause and outcome between pet raising and asthma, this question was not inquired about in this investigation. We decided not to include them as indoor factors or covariates because inclusion of these factors might have given significant associations, but they would have been difficult to interpret for causality.…”

Section: E392mentioning

confidence: 99%

Indoor and Outdoor Environmental Exposures, Parental Atopy, and Physician-Diagnosed Asthma in Taiwanese Schoolchildren

et al. 2003

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ABSTRACT. Objective. Parental atopy and environmental exposures are recognized risk factors for childhood asthma. However, the relative contributions of specific risk factors and the overall contributions of indoor and outdoor exposures remain unexplored. This study was undertaken to identify risk factors, estimate the population attributable risk of each exposure, and compare the data for boys versus girls for physician-diagnosed asthma in Taiwanese schoolchildren.Methods. During a February to June 2001 cross-sectional national survey, 35 036 6-to 15-year-old schoolchildren were chosen from 22 elementary and 22 middle schools located within 1-km catchment areas of 22 airmonitoring stations in Taiwan. The main outcome measure was physician-diagnosed asthma, as reported by the parents. We investigated hereditary and indoor and outdoor environmental factors for childhood asthma by questionnaire. The adjusted prevalences of questionnaire-determined outdoor indicators were also compared with air-monitoring data.Results. Outdoor air pollutants were associated with parent-reported perceived ambient air pollution. Physician-diagnosed asthma was reported for 8.1% of the boys (1330 of 16 441) and 5.6% of the girls (894 of 16 056). The risk of physician-diagnosed asthma was significantly associated with parental atopy and perceived ambient air pollution in both sexes. A sthma is the single most common chronic childhood disease in developed nations, 1,2 and its prevalence and severity have been reported as increasing in many countries. [3][4][5][6] The changing pattern of the disease has not been fully explained, in part because of an incomplete understanding of its pathogenesis. The change has been too rapid to be accounted for by changes in gene frequencies. It is also unlikely that the increase can be totally accounted for by changes in either clinical diagnostic patterns or increased recognition of asthma symptoms by the general population. 7 This does, however, suggest a role for environmental exposures in the cause of this evolving epidemic. 8 Many factors have been proved to be associated with the prevalence and/or attacks of asthma, including personal factors (smoking habits, genetics, age, sex, nutritional status, number of siblings, coexisting lung disease, lifestyle, allergy status, family history, and occupation) and environmental stimuli (house dust, animal danders, molds, cockroach infestation, occupational exposure, environmental tobacco smoke, indoor/outdoor air pollution, cooking fumes, aeroallergens, and climate). 9 -29 Both genetic and environmental factors are believed to contribute to the relationship. However, epidemiologic evidence concerning different effects in boys and girls in relationships between environmental exposures and childhood asthma was insufficient and warranted additional investigations.The first aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between physician-diagnosed asthma and selected risk factors in a population-based sample of 6-to 15-year-old elementary-and middleschool...

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Exposure to pets and atopy‐related diseases in the first 4 years of life

Abstract: The results indicate that early-life exposure to pets or lifestyle factors associated with exposure to pets reduce the risk of developing atopy-related diseases in early childhood. However, these findings might also be explained by selection for keeping pets.

Cited by 186 publications

References 26 publications

Early-life environmental risk factors for asthma: findings from the Children's Health Study.

Early-life environmental risk factors for asthma: findings from the Children's Health Study.

Pet-keeping and its impact on asthma and allergies among preschool children in Shanghai, China

Indoor and Outdoor Environmental Exposures, Parental Atopy, and Physician-Diagnosed Asthma in Taiwanese Schoolchildren

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