Asthma and height in twins: a cohort and within-pair analyses study

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Allergy and Immunology
• Twin Studies
• Growth and Development

Background:

• Previous studies suggest asthma may affect adolescent height and growth, but often overlook heritability and puberty.
• Understanding the interplay between asthma, puberty, and height is crucial for accurate clinical assessment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the association between asthma and puberty/menarche, and height in a Swedish twin cohort.
• To examine these associations within same-sex twin pairs discordant for asthma to control for genetic and familial factors.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from a Swedish twin cohort, including parent- and self-reported asthma, puberty/menarche (Petersen index), and height.
• Employed logistic and linear regression for cohort analyses, and conditional logistic and linear regression for within-pair analyses in discordant twins.

Main Results:

• No significant associations were found between asthma and puberty/menarche in the overall cohort.
• Asthma was associated with shorter height in boys at ages 8-9 and 13-14, but not in girls or at age 19-20.
• Within-pair analyses of twins discordant for asthma revealed no statistically significant associations for either sex.

Conclusions:

• Twin boys with asthma tend to be shorter than their non-asthmatic counterparts during pre-adolescence and early adolescence.
• The lack of significant findings in discordant twin pairs suggests that genetic or familial environmental factors may confound the observed association between asthma and height in boys.