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Antibiotics early in life may lead to asthma later

Respiratory Care Weekly, March 15, 2006

Giving a baby antibiotics in the first year of life might double the child's risk of eventually developing asthma, according to a study in the March Chest. A University of British Columbia researcher and his colleagues reviewed the results of eight studies, including 12,092 children, 1,817 of whom had asthma.

The findings concluded that a strong correlation between antibiotics in the first year of life and asthma development. Furthermore, the more antibiotics a child took, the more likely he or she would develop asthma, according to Chest. In their discussion of the results, researchers pointed out the possibility that the correlation goes the other way-that children predisposed to asthma need antibiotics earlier in life-and that more research is needed to determine which is the case.

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