It isn’t rocket science that parents should not be smoking at home with children that suffer from asthma.  A new study finds, that secondhand smoke may be counteracting the effects of the child’s asthma treatment.

 

The study, published in the journal Chest, finds that the oxidants in cigarette smoke were shown to be capable of destroying key anti-inflammatory enzymes in asthma medicine.  Great.

 

“Passive smoking in the home and in cars is damaging to the lungs,” lead researcher Professor Peter Barnes told Medical Daily. “What our study shows is that it can stop a key asthma treatment — inhaled steroids — from working properly, so it means that asthma is not as well-controlled.”

 

Because asthma is characterized by chronic inflammation in a person’s airways that makes breathing difficult, asthmatics rely on inhalers to deliver corticosteroid, which helps to stop the abnormal inflammation signal.  Children that live in homes where smoking transpires, Barnes explains, were shown to have the same resistance to these steroids as adults who actively smoke.

 

For more information on Smoking Cessation and integrating it into your practice, to help save the children in smoking homes, visit MD Spiro’s Breath CO section today.

 

References:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3913299/

http://www.medicaldaily.com/secondhand-smoke-could-cancel-out-asthma-treatment-destruction-key-enzyme-269278