Diet, Exercise Key for Kids
on Anti-Inflammatories
Excerpt By Stephen Pincock, Reuters Health

For children taking oral doses of powerful anti-inflammatory drugs, exercise and diet are a crucial way to overcome the potentially bone-damaging side effects of the drugs, a British researcher said on Thursday.

Although osteoporosis is a condition often associated with postmenopausal women, the fragile-bone disease can also affect children taking oral doses of corticosteroids.

Every year, around one percent of children ages 4 to 17 are given a course of oral steroids, more than half to treat severe asthma. Most youngsters with asthma are given inhaled versions of the drugs, which are safer than oral doses.

"Steroids are widely and effectively used to treat inflammatory conditions, but not enough is known about the relationship between the changes in bone structure and the dose of steroids in children," Professor Nicholas Bishop from the University of Sheffield said here at the Annual European Congress of Rheumatology.

The researcher said children given long-term oral steroids are at significantly increased risk of fractures, a risk that grows with higher and more-frequent doses.

The bone-weakening effects of the drugs can be counteracted by a group of medicines called bisphosphonates, Bishop said, but patients and their families can also make a big difference themselves through diet and exercise.

For example, he said, 15 percent of adolescents avoid dairy products altogether, which could have a "massive" impact on their fracture risk.

"If you put together the risk of damage to your bones from steroids with another factor like not having any dairy products in your diet, then there is likely to be a substantial effect," Bishop told Reuters Health.

Similarly, weight-bearing exercise like walking or cycling can help build bone density, but there is a natural tendency for chronically sick children to reduce the amount of exercise they do, he said.

Considering all this, the researcher had a simple message for the parents of these children.

"Encourage the child to be as physically active as they want to be and can be within the limitations of wheezing -- if they can't run, (then) go swimming -- and maintain a good dairy product intake. A pint of milk a day would suit most."

Reference Source 89

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