Kids with asthma are more likely to have breathing problems and be hospitalized when they live with a smoker, a research review suggests.
The team analyzed data from 25 studies that included a combined total of more than 430,000 children. Kids with asthma who were also exposed to second-hand smoke were 66 percent more likely to seek emergency care and 85 percent more likely to be hospitalized than their peers who didn't spend time around smokers, the study found.
For asthmatic kids, breathing in cigarette smoke was also linked to a more than tripled risk of poor lung function and 32 percent higher odds of wheezing symptoms.
While the risk of smoke exposure exacerbating asthma symptoms is well known, fresh evidence on the extent of the danger posed to children may help convince some parents to abandon their cigarettes, said senior study author Dr. Avni Joshi, an allergist and immunologist at Mayo Clinic Children's Center in Rochester, Minnesota.
"There is hope that smoking cessation will help improve asthma symptoms and health care utilization even after any duration or extent of second-hand tobacco exposure," Joshi said by email. "In addition, children learn from parental behavior and they are less likely to start smoking themselves if they do not observe parental tobacco use."
Globally, an estimated 235 million people suffer from asthma, according to the World Health Organization.
