Extract
Asthma is a major non-communicable disease in children [1]. Pre- and post-natal exposure to tobacco smoke are major risk factors for childhood asthma [1, 2]. While there is evidence that mothers' intrauterine exposure to second-hand smoke is associated with asthma in the offspring [3, 4], there is also increasing concern that fathers who start smoking before completing puberty may elevate the risk of asthma in their offspring [4, 5]. The suggestion is that this may be as a result of epigenetic changes to sperm precursor (stem) cells during gonadal maturation [4, 5]. However, this is rather speculative, and as yet little is actually known about whether fathers' passive smoke exposure throughout childhood to puberty is indeed associated with increased asthma risk in their offspring.
Abstract
The risk of non-allergic childhood asthma in offspring may increase if their fathers were exposed to pre-pubertal passive smoke https://bit.ly/3bMHZnP
Acknowledgements
This study is based on the data collected within the Tasmanian Longitudinal Health Study (TAHS). The authors gratefully acknowledge all the participants and research staff of the TAHS.
Footnotes
Author contributions: Study conceptualisation and design: J. Liu, G. Bowatte, J. Pham, J.L. Perret, D.S. Bui and S.C. Dharmage; data analysis and interpretation: J. Liu, G. Bowatte, J. Pham, D.S. Bui and S.C. Dharmage; data collection: G. Bowatte, J. Pham, J.L. Perret, J.W. Holloway, A.J. Lowe, J.A. Burgess, C. Svanes, P. Thomas, M.A. Russell, B. Erbas, C.J. Lodge, D. Martino, G.D. Mishra, M.J. Abramson, E.H. Walters, D.S. Bui and S.C. Dharmage; manuscript preparation: J. Liu, D.S. Bui and S.C. Dharmage; manuscript modification: G. Bowatte, J. Pham, J.L. Perret, J.W. Holloway, A.J. Lowe, J.A. Burgess, C. Svanes, P. Thomas, M.A. Russell, B. Erbas, C.J. Lodge, D. Martino, G.D. Mishra, M.J. Abramson and E.H. Walters. All authors critically reviewed the manuscript and approved the final version for submission.
Conflicts of interest: M.J. Abramson holds investigator initiated grants from Pfizer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Sanofi and GSK for unrelated research; has undertaken an unrelated consultancy and received assistance with conference attendance from Sanofi; and has also received a speaker's fee from GSK. J.L. Perret, A.J. Lowe, C.J. Lodge and S.C. Dharmage declare they have received research funds from GSK’s competitively awarded Investigator Sponsored Studies program for unrelated research. A.J. Lowe also declares he has received donations of interventional product (EpiCeram) from Primus Pharmaceuticals for unrelated research. The rest of the authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
- Received February 8, 2022.
- Accepted August 4, 2022.
- Copyright ©The authors 2022. For reproduction rights and permissions contact permissions{at}ersnet.org
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