Young children given asthma medication before the age of two may not grow to their full height in later life, a preliminary report suggests.
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Inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) represent medications found commonly in inhalers that are used in the treatment of asthma in adults and recurrent wheezing in kids.
After the analysis, it was found out that children who were given corticosteroids inhalers during the first two years of their lives were found out to be too short for people their age.
The research was offered on the 54th annual assembly of European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology Assembly in Barcelona, Spain.
The study indicates there may be a link between the use of inhaled corticosteroids during infancy and shorter heights in adulthood. “The longitudinal impact of these medications is not clear and we would therefore like to investigate this further”, Saari said. The experts feel that although this family of drugs will help lessen these conditions along the overall condition, they may have negative effects throughout the child’s development in their later ages, the employment of the medicinal drugs in childhood can even result in quicker top in maturity.
Asthma United Kingdom have claimed that inhaled corticosteroids inhibits a crucial role in monitoring asthma symptoms and decreasing trips to hospital for young infants. In 2012, a study reported in the New England Journal of medicine has yielded the same conclusion as the recent Finland research. The NBC News report quoted doctors who said that the effect appears to be permanent for ICS users. One in every eleven children in the United Kingdom suffers from asthma, making it the most common childhood ailment in the country. In young pre-school children who wheeze, it is uncertain which ones among them should be aimed with steroids. He informed that his team is yet to figure out who responds to steroid treatment in this group.
This result was more evident in children taking the asthma medicine budesonide for more than six months, the study said.
Commenting on the findings of the research, lead author of the study, Dr Antti Saari said, “Previously, the impact of corticosteroids on growth was looked at in older children and was thought to alter growth only temporarily”.
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According to the CDC, boys are more likely to be diagnosed with asthma than girls.
