Washington DC: Variation in female sex hormones could be linked to the development of allergies and asthma, according to experts.<\/p>\n
Analysis of studies involving more than 500,000 women highlights a link between asthma symptoms and key life changes such as puberty and menopause.<\/p>\n
Further investigation could help explain why asthma is more common in boys than girls in childhood, but more common in teenage girls and women following<\/p>\n
puberty.<\/p>\n
Experts say, however, that the relationship is inconclusive and call for more research.<\/p>\n
Asthma is a disease of the airways that can seriously restrict breathing and is often associated with allergies.<\/p>\n
Many women report that their asthma symptoms change with their menstrual cycle, which may be down to variations in levels of hormones, including estrogen<\/p>\n
and progesterone, but the link is unclear.<\/p>\n
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh reviewed more than 50 studies of women with asthma from puberty to 75 years of age.<\/p>\n
They found that starting periods before turning 11 years old, as well as irregular periods, was associated with a higher rate of asthma.<\/p>\n
Onset of menopause – when periods stop and oestrogen and progesterone levels fluctuate – was also associated with a higher chance of having asthma<\/p>\n
compared with pre menopause.<\/p>\n
Scientists say the link between asthma and hormonal drugs including HRT and contraceptives is unclear and women should continue to take medications as<\/p>\n
prescribed by their GP.<\/p>\n
The researchers plan to study the biological processes through which sex hormones might play a role in asthma and allergy.<\/p>\n
Dr Nicola McCleary, who led the study at the University of Edinburgh’s Asthma UK Centre for Applied Research, said: “Asthma and allergy symptoms are often<\/p>\n
affected by life events such as puberty and menopause, but the reasons behind this are unclear.<\/p>\n
“In carrying out this systematic review, we noted that there were many differences between studies investigating hormonal treatments in terms of the type and<\/p>\n
dose of hormone, and the way patients took the treatment. This made it difficult to draw firm conclusions from the results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington DC: Variation in female sex hormones could be linked to the development of allergies and asthma, according to experts. Analysis of studies involving more than 500,000 women highlights a link between asthma symptoms and key life changes such as puberty and menopause. Further investigation could help explain why asthma is more common in boys […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22632,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[239],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22631"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22633,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22631\/revisions\/22633"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}