According to a study published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, children are seven times more likely than other infants to develop asthma, and significantly more likely to have a food allergy by age three if they exhibited eczema or atopic dermatitis (AD) and were sensitized to an allergen at age one.
Using data from more than 2,300 children from across Canada participating in the CHILD Study, the researchers evaluated the presence of AD and allergic sensitization at age one. When the children were three years of age, the researchers performed a clinical assessment to determine the presence of asthma, allergic rhinitis, food allergy and AD. The combined effect of AD and allergic sensitization was found to be greater than the sum of their individual effects, both on the risk of asthma and on reported food allergy.
“Our findings are useful to help predict which children may develop asthma and allergies,” researchers said. “There are certain genetic variants that we know are risk factors for allergy, but genotyping is not widely used in clinical practice, so this research offers healthcare professionals an alternative method of identifying at-risk children.”
