HealthDay Reporter
FRIDAY, Dec. 2, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Research investigating schoolchildren’s asthma attacks has pointed to a tiny foe: mice.
Allergens from the rodents can infiltrate the air, the study found, and may be a major cause of asthma attacks in the school environment.
It’s known that many different allergy triggers — from dust mites to mold to pet dander — can fuel children’s asthma symptoms. But most research has focused on the triggers in kids’ homes.
“In this study, we’ve identified the school as an important factor, too,” said researcher Dr. Wanda Phipatanakul, an allergy specialist at Boston Children’s Hospital.
That said, she stressed, the findings do not actually prove that schools’ rodent problems were the cause of kids’ symptoms.
The next step, Phipatanakul said, is a study where schools will get air purifiers and “integrated pest management,” to see if that improves students’ respiratory health.
Integrated pest management focuses on long-term tactics — such as sealing up building cracks, and removing clutter, standing water and other conditions that attract pests.
In the United States, over 6 million children have asthma, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including about 17 percent of black children.
The new study, published online recently in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, appears to be the first in the United States to look at school allergens and students’ health.
“We’ve seen a lot of studies looking at the home environment,” said Dr. Chantal Spencer, a pediatric pulmonologist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York City.
“But since kids spend so much time at school, it’s important to study allergen exposures there, too,” added Spencer, who was not involved in the study.
She agreed that the results do not prove that mice are the root cause of kids’ more severe asthma symptoms.
” Asthma is a multi-factorial disease, and it’s difficult to pinpoint one allergen exposure as the problem,” Spencer said.
Plus, she noted, the findings are based on inner-city schools in the northeastern United States, and may not be true of schools nationwide. “Other indoor allergens might be important in other regions,” Spencer said.
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