IBD Raises Asthma Risk

The results of a large study showed that asthma is more prevalent in individuals with inflammatorybowel disease (IBD), such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. In the first study touncover an association with asthma, the researchers looked at 8072 patients with IBD andcompared them with a control group matched by age, sex, and geography.

As reported in Gastroenterology (September 2005), the researchers learned that patientswith ulcerative colitis were 1.5 to 1.7 times more prone to have asthma, compared with the controlgroup, and patients with Crohn's disease had a 1.3 to 1.4 times greater risk.