© 2004 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd & British Thoracic Society
EDITORIAL
Indoor pollutants and asthma in children
The great indoors
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
B Brunekreef PhD
Professor of Environmental Epidemiology, Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, P O Box 80176, 3508 TD Utrecht, The Netherlands; b.brunekreef@iras.uu.nl
Further evidence for the role of indoor pollutants in the development of childhood asthma
Keywords: children; asthma; gas heaters; volatile organic compounds; early life exposure indoor air quality
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
The prevalence of asthma (especially childhood asthma) is high, and children in particular spend a lot of time in their homes. In addition, our homes contain many pollutants so, understandably, we’d like to know to what extent pollutants in the home environment cause and/or worsen asthma in our children.
In many children asthma is closely associated with allergy, and many asthmatic children are allergic to dust mite and pet allergens. For them, reduction of exposure is likely to be beneficial. But does this mean that mite and pet exposure causes asthma? This issue is surprisingly complex. Whereas studies suggest that exposure to specific allergens increases sensitisation to those allergens, this does not necessarily mean that such exposures also increase the incidence of asthma.1,2 Some studies even suggest that early life exposure to pets (and other animals) may reduce the incidence of asthma.3–7
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