Asthma during childhood may up your risk of heart
failure in adulthood
Individuals with a history of asthma from
childhood may be at a greater risk of experiencing shortness of breath, chest
pain, fainting and eventually heart failure in
adulthood, researchers have warned. The study showed that childhood asthma may
lead to thickening in the left ventricle — one of the four chambers of the
heart responsible for pumping oxygenated blood to tissues all over the body —
in a condition known as left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH), causing the heart
muscle to lose elasticity and eventually fail to pump. LVH is recognised
as target-organ damage resulting from a chronic increase in pressure and volume
overload, with an estimated prevalence of 14.9 percent for men and 9.1 percent
for women in the general population. “Our results indicated that young adults
with a history of asthma were at a significantly greater risk of increased left
ventricular mass index, independent of other major heart disease risk factors,”
said Lu Qi, Director of the Tulane University in Louisiana, US. The findings
also showed that the association was more prominent in patients with
pre-hypertension and hypertension.
The prevalence of asthma has been growing during the
past decade with an estimated current prevalence of 8.6 per cent in children
and 7.4 per cent in adults. Emerging evidence from epidemiological studies
has shown that asthma in adulthood is associated with an increased risk of
premature death, coronary heart disease and stroke. “Our findings suggest
aggressive lifestyle modifications or even pharmacological treatment may be applied
to people with a history of asthma, especially those also affected by high
blood pressure, in order to lower cardiovascular risk,” said Qi. For the study,
published in the journal JACC: Heart Failure, the team examined 1,118 patients,
who answered a questionnaire on their asthma history.
29.06.2017
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