Parental preconception BMI trajectories from childhood to adolescence and asthma in the future offspring.

BACKGROUND: Recent evidence suggests that parental exposures before conception can increase the risk of asthma in offspring. OBJECTIVE: We investigated the association between parents' preconception body mass index (BMI) trajectories from childhood to adolescence and subsequent risk of asthma in their offspring. METHODS: Using group-based trajectory modeling from the Tasmanian Longitudinal Health Study, we identified BMI trajectories for index participants (parents) when aged 4 years to 15 years. Multinomial regression models adjusted for potential confounders were utilized to estimate the association between these early-life parents' BMI trajectories and asthma phenotypes in their subsequent offspring. RESULTS: The main analysis included 1822 parents and 4208 offspring. Four BMI trajectories from age 4 years to 15 years were identified as the best-fitting model: low (8.8%), normal (44.1%), above normal (40.2%), and high (7.0%). Associations were observed between father's high BMI trajectory and risk of asthma in offspring before the age of 10 years (relative risk ratio [RRR] =1.70 [95% CI = 0.98-2.93]) and also asthma ever (RRR = 1.72 [95% CI = 1.00-2.97]), especially allergic asthma ever (RRR = 2.05 [95% CI = 1.12-3.72]). These associations were not mediated by offspring birth weight. No associations were observed for maternal BMI trajectories and offspring asthma phenotypes. CONCLUSION: This cohort study over 6 decades of life and across 2 generations suggests that the high BMI trajectory in fathers, well before conception, increased the risk of asthma in their offspring.

Ambient PM2.5 and PM10 Exposure and Respiratory Disease Hospitalization in Kandy, Sri Lanka.

Evidence of associations between exposure to ambient air pollution and health outcomes are sparse in the South Asian region due to limited air pollution exposure and quality health data. This study investigated the potential impacts of ambient particulate matter (PM) on respiratory disease hospitalization in Kandy, Sri Lanka for the year 2019. The Generalized Additive Model (GAM) was applied to estimate the short-term effect of ambient PM on respiratory disease hospitalization. As the second analysis, respiratory disease hospitalizations during two distinct air pollution periods were analyzed. Each 10 µg/m3 increase in same-day exposure to PM2.5 and PM10 was associated with an increased risk of respiratory disease hospitalization by 1.95% (0.25, 3.67) and 1.63% (0.16, 3.12), respectively. The effect of PM2.5 or PM10 on asthma hospitalizations were 4.67% (1.23, 8.23) and 4.04% (1.06, 7.11), respectively (p < 0.05). The 65+ years age group had a higher risk associated with PM2.5 and PM10 exposure and hospital admissions for all respiratory diseases on the same day (2.74% and 2.28%, respectively). Compared to the lower ambient air pollution period, higher increased hospital admissions were observed among those aged above 65 years, males, and COPD and pneumonia hospital admissions during the high ambient air pollution period. Active efforts are crucial to improve ambient air quality in this region to reduce the health effects.