Kuopio, Finland—Prescribing asthma medications to children younger than 2 years of age can potentially stunt their lifetime growth. That’s according to research presented recently at the 54th Annual European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology Meeting in Barcelona, Spain. Researchers from Kuopio University Hospital and University of Eastern Finland note that Inhaled corticosteroids are frequently used in infants with recurrent wheezing, although they can have harmful effects. Among those effects, according to the study, are a reduced growth rate in development and a shorter height in adulthood. The researchers analyzed information on the height, weight, and asthma medicine intake of 12,482 Finnish children aged 0 to 24 months, finding that those using inhaled corticosteroids during the first 2 years of life ended up being too short for their age. That was even more the case in children using the asthma medicine budesonide for more than 6 months, according to the results.
Published October 30, 2015
