MONDAY, Sept. 14 (HealthDay News) -- Atopic adolescents who swim in chlorinated swimming pools may face a higher risk of asthma and respiratory allergies, according to research published online Sept. 14 in Pediatrics.
Alfred Bernard, Ph.D., of the Catholic University of Louvain in Brussels, Belgium, and colleagues analyzed data from 847 students, ages 13 to 18 years. The researchers categorized students into four groups based on their chlorinated pool attendance (CPA), from fewer than 100 cumulative hours to more than 1,000.
The researchers found that adolescents considered atopic based on their total or aeroallergen-specific immunoglobulin E level had a risk of current or ever asthma that increased with cumulative hours spent in chlorinated pools (odds ratio for current asthma in those with more than 1,000 hours of CPA, 7.1 to 14.9). Atopic teens with at least 100 hours of chlorinated pool attendance had a higher risk of hay fever (odds ratio, 3.3 to 6.6).
"Probably the most important finding of our study is that the pool chlorine-atopy interaction described initially for asthma may extend to other common allergic diseases, such as hay fever and allergic rhinitis. Exposure-response relationships seemed to differ according to the type of respiratory allergy, which is not surprising, given the variable deposition of inhalants along the respiratory tract," the authors write.
Abstract
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