Asthma: high risk for children with smoking parents

A recent study confirms that the Passive smoker in the children exposes them to a greater risk of developing respiratory disease. One of them is theasthma. If the father is a smoker and if he was exposed to cigarette smoke as a child, the risk increases. Here, this is confirmed by the existence of a transgenerational effect, whereby smoking can harm the health of people born two generations later.

The risk of non-allergic asthma in children is increased by 59% if their fathers were exposed to secondhand smoke as children. The risk still increases to 72% if fathers were exposed to secondhand smoke, as well as by continuing to smoke.

Our results show how the harm caused by smoking can affect not only smokers, but also their children and grandchildren.

dr. Dinh Buic

The only solution is that men have to stop smokingto protect the health of their children. When children are exposed to second-hand smoke from their parents before the age of 15, their children are at higher risk for non-allergic asthma. For fathers, exposure to smoke before age 15 is an essential risk factor.

THE epigenetic changes smoking caused an increased risk of asthma in children whose fathers inhaled secondhand smoke as a young man. Such epigenetic changes can be caused by environmental factors such as smoking and heredity. An epigenetic shift could be at the level of germ cells.

These changes will be inherited by the children which in turn can harm health. Germ cells are formed until puberty: a fragile age, in which exposure to smoke can lead to major epigenetic changes.