Use of asthma drugs by pregnant women linked to autism

From UPI:

BALTIMORE — Common drugs for the treatment of asthma in pregnant women as well as pre-term labor may increase autism-spectrum disorder risk, U.S. researchers said.

Dr. Frank R. Witter of The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and colleagues said beta 2 adrenergic agonist drugs as a class are widely used in obstetrics to inhibit or slow down labor, and bronchodilators use a similar drug to decrease airway resistance and thereby facilitate airflow.

These drugs may act as functional and behavioral teratogens — an agent which can cause a birth defect — when given continuously in the mid- to late-second or early third trimesters, Witter said.

“Given the risk of long-term neurophysiologic and behavioral impairment, the use of beta 2 adrenergic agonists should be limited to proven indications when alternate drugs are ineffective or unavailable and the risks of the untreated disease to the mother and fetus are greater than the risk of the beta 2 adrenergic agonist,” Witter said in a statement. “Treatment duration should be as short as clinically feasible.”

The researchers did not identify the drugs used in the study, however, short-acting beta2 agonists include: salbutamol, or Albuterol, Ventolin; levosalbutamol; terbutaline, pirbuterol or Maxair; procaterol; metaproterenol or Alupent; fenoterol and bitolterol mesylate.

The findings are scheduled to be published in the December issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Fast food linked to child asthma - study

Children who frequently eat fast food are far likelier to have severe asthma compared to counterparts who tuck into fruit, a large international study published on Monday said.

Researchers asked nearly half a million teenagers aged 13-14 and children aged six and seven about their eating habits and whether in the previous year they had experienced wheezing, eczema or an itchy, blocked nose when they did not have cold or flu.

The questionnaires — completed by a parent or guardian for the younger children — were distributed in scores of countries.

It marks the latest phase in a long-running collaborative programme, the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC), which was launched in 1991.

The investigators filtered out factors that could skew results, such as
maternal smoking during pregnancy, sedentary lifestyle and body-mass index, in order to focus purely on diet.

They found that fast food was the only food type that could be clearly
linked to asthma severity.

Three or more weekly servings of fast food were associated with a
39-percent increase in the risk of severe asthma among teens and a 27-percent increase among younger children.

It also added to the risk of eczema and severe rhinitis. In contrast, eating three or more weekly portions of fruit led to a reduction in symptom severity of between 11 and 14 percent, respectively.

The study, which appears in the British Medical Association journal Thorax, noted that to prove an association is not to prove a cause — but argued that a further inquiry was clearly needed.

“If the associations (are) causal, then the findings have major public
health significance, owing to the rising consumption of fast foods globally,” the authors said.

Previous research has found that the saturated and “trans” fatty acids
trigger an inflammatory response from the immune system, the paper noted.