Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Risk Linked to Asthma

Asthma was associated with an increased risk for developing inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), according to the findings of a recent study.

In the population-based case-control study, the researchers used health administrative data from the province of Alberta, Canada to identify 3087 individuals diagnosed with Crohn disease and 2377 individuals diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. They compared the odds of an asthma diagnosis preceding an IBD diagnosis among patients with either Crohn disease or ulcerative colitis with the odds of an asthma diagnosis in those without IBD (N= 402,800), and examined the effect measure modification by age at diagnosis. 
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Asthma was associated with increased risk of incident Crohn disease (adjusted odds ratio [OR]: 145), but age at diagnosis did not modify the effects.

Conversely, ulcerative colitis was modified by age at diagnosis, with an adjusted OR of 1.59 among individuals diagnosed at 16 years of age or younger and adjusted OR of 1.57 among individuals diagnosed after 40 years of age. However, asthma was not associated with a diagnosis of ulcerative colitis among individuals between 17 and 40 years of age.

“In a population-based case–control study, we associated asthma with Crohn’s disease, and with early and late-onset ulcerative colitis,” the researchers concluded.

—Melissa Weiss

Reference:

Kuenzig ME, Barnabe C, Seow CH, et al. Asthma is associated with subsequent development of inflammatory bowel disease: a population-based case–Control study. Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2017;15(9): 1405-1412. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cgh.2017.02.042.