MADISON – A new study gives parents another reason to worry about their children, especially if one of those parents have asthma or allergies themselves. Almost 90 per cent of kids who develop wheezing with a viral cold before age three will have asthma by the time they are six, if they have at least one allergic or asthmatic parent.

Rhinoviruses are the single most common viral infective agent, responsible for as many as 1 out of every 2 common colds. Symptoms of rhinovirus include nasal congestion, sneezing, cough, muscle aches, fatigue with the possibility of accompanying headache, weakness and loss of appetite.

The Childhood Origins of Asthma (COAST) study looked at the relationship between wheezing and asthma in kids. It was led by Dr Robert Lemanske, School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) at the University of Wisconsin.

The study tracked three hundred newborns with at least one parent who had asthma or allergies for 6 years. At that point, almost 3 out of 10 kids in the study had developed asthma. Of these, children who wheezed with the common rhinovirus were most likely to be diagnosed with asthma. Dr Lemanske said “…rhinovirus illness accompanied by wheezing anytime in the first three years of life is linked to an almost ten-fold increase in asthma by the age of six.”

Results were grouped by specific age ranges:

1. Children who wheezed with a rhinovirus in their first 12 months were three times more likely to develop asthma by six;
2. Children who wheezed with a rhinovirus between 12 and 24 months increased their chance of asthma six times by age six;
3. Children who wheezed with a rhinovirus between 24 and 36 months of age jumped their risk of asthma at age six a whopping 30 times!

Researchers stress that they don’t know if rhinovirus is causing asthma or if it just points out the children with a predisposition to asthma.

Source: WKOWTV.com