TUESDAY, April 17 (HealthDay News) -- Children who live at high altitudes are at greater risk for hospitalization for atopic asthma than are their counterparts who live closer to sea level, according to a study in the April issue of the Archives of Disease in Childhood.
Ursula Kiechl-Kohlendorfer, M.D., of Innsbruck Medical University in Innsbruck, Austria, and colleagues examined risks for hospitalization for atopic asthma in a prospective birth-cohort study comprising 33,808 infants born in Tyrol, Austria, from 1994 to 1999.
They found that 305 children were hospitalized for atopic asthma between 2000 and 2005. Mean altitude of the residences was 740 meters. Children living at higher altitudes were more likely to be hospitalized for atopic asthma than those children who lived at lower altitudes. Risk for hospitalization increased by 7 percent for each 100-meter increase in altitude. The findings did not vary by season.
"The underlying mechanisms remain to be elucidated, but it is tempting to speculate about a role for altitude characteristics such as the decline in outdoor temperature and air humidity and increase in ozone levels, which may trigger airway hyper-responsiveness and attenuate lung function," the study authors wrote.
Abstract
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