• BMC pulmonary medicine · Jan 2012

    Endotoxin as a determinant of asthma and wheeze among rural dwelling children and adolescents: a case-control study.

    • Joshua A Lawson, James A Dosman, Donna C Rennie, Jeremy R Beach, Stephen C Newman, Trever Crowe, and Ambikaipakan Senthilselvan.
    • Canadian Centre for Health and Safety in Agriculture & Department of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada. josh.lawson@usask.ca
    • BMC Pulm Med. 2012 Jan 1; 12: 56.

    BackgroundThe association between endotoxin exposure and asthma is complex and has been associated with rural living. We examined the relationship between domestic endotoxin and asthma or wheeze among rural school-aged children (6-18 years) and assessed the interaction between endotoxin and other characteristics with these outcomes.MethodsBetween 2005 and 2007 we conducted a case-control study of children 6-18 years in the rural region of Humboldt, Canada. Cases (n = 102) reported doctor-diagnosed asthma or wheeze in the past year. Controls (n = 208) were randomly selected from children without asthma or wheeze. Data were collected to ascertain symptoms, asthma history and indoor environmental exposures (questionnaire), endotoxin (dust collection from the play area floor and child's mattress), and tobacco smoke exposure (saliva collection). Statistical testing was completed using multiple logistic regression to account for potential confounders and to assess interaction between risk factors. A stratified analysis was also completed to examine the effect of personal history of allergy.ResultsAmong children aged 6-12 years, mattress endotoxin concentration (EU/mg) and load (EU/m2) were inversely associated with being a case [odds ratio (OR) = 0.44, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.20-0.98; and OR = 0.38, 95% CI = 0.20-0.75, respectively]. These associations were not observed in older children or with play area endotoxin.ConclusionsOur results suggest that endotoxin exposure might be protective for asthma or wheeze. The protective effect is found in younger school-aged, non-allergic children. These results may help explain the inconsistencies in previous studies and suggest that the protective effects of endotoxin in the prevention of atopy and asthma or wheeze are most effective earlier in life.

      Pubmed     Free full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…