In a manuscript accepted in August, 2022, for publication in the European Respiratory Journal, a team of Australian, British and Sri Lankan researchers found that children are much more likely to develop asthma if their father was exposed to tobacco smoke when he was growing up. Jiacheng Liu, from Melbourne University, one of the co-authors shared, “We found that the risk of non-allergic asthma in children increases by 59% if their fathers were exposed to secondhand smoke in childhood, compared to children whose fathers were not exposed…The risk was even higher, at 72%, if the fathers were exposed to secondhand smoke and went on to smoke themselves.” Dr Dinh Bui, another co-author, said: “Our findings show how the damage caused by smoking can have an impact not only on smokers but also their children and grandchildren.”
For the study abstract, click here. For a news article, click here.