Risk Factors May Link Asthma & Diabetes

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - After looking at the rates of type 1 diabetes and asthma in European countries, researchers suggest that factors influencing the risk of developing the two diseases may be linked.

Both asthma and diabetes develop as a result of immune system imbalances, but having one disease usually lowers the chance of having the other disease, according to Dr. Lars C. Stene from Aker University Hospital and Dr. Per Nafstad from the National Institute of Public Health, both in Oslo, Norway.

The investigators looked at the rates of wheezing and diabetes in children in 16 European countries and 12 countries outside Europe.

According to their February 24th report in The Lancet, there was, indeed, a parallel between asthma rates and diabetes rates across countries, whether in Europe or elsewhere. The link was especially apparent in affluent English-speaking countries.

``Factors influencing the proportion of individuals susceptible to inflammatory diseases such as asthma and type 1 diabetes may cluster in countries,'' the authors write. ``The susceptibility may be caused by genetic make-up, early environmental exposures, or both.''

Stene is careful to note that a link in the risk factors does not indicate a link in the causes of the two diseases. ``A statistical association does of course not necessarily implicate common (causes),'' he told Reuters Health.

``In the research letter, we have not insinuated that it does, but rather stated that the observation indicates a possibility that (the causes) cluster in countries,'' he added.

Stene said he hopes their findings will encourage other investigators to expand their own research to consider factors beyond immune imbalances in studying the causes behind asthma and diabetes.

``Even though knowledge about immune responses...is likely to bring the field forward,'' Stene concluded, ``I think more knowledge is necessary before it can be put into therapeutic or preventive use.''

SOURCE: The Lancet 2001;357:607-608.

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