Research involving more than 30,000 children suggests no link between household cat exposure and asthma severity or lung function.
RT’s Three Key Takeaways:
- No Clinical Impact: A large-scale study found that children living with cats experienced similar asthma severity, control, and lung function compared to those in cat-free households.
- Variable Independence: Research indicated that asthma outcomes were not affected by the number of cats in the home, or the age and sex of the animals.
- Environmental Exposure: Researchers suggested the lack of difference may be due to high levels of cat allergen exposure in public spaces like schools and transportation.
Sharing a home with cats may not worsen clinical outcomes for children with asthma or allergies, according to a study published in Frontiers in Allergy.
Researchers at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm analyzed a nationwide cohort of 30,277 children in Sweden between the ages of 4 and 17 who were diagnosed with asthma or airway allergies. The study, which followed the group for 24 months, tracked diagnoses, emergency visits, prescribed medications, and lung function tests.
“Here we show in a nationwide cohort of children in Sweden with asthma and allergies, that children living with a cat had similar asthma severity, exacerbation, asthma control, and lung function to children living without cats in the short term,” said Resthie R Putri, a postdoctoral fellow at Karolinska Institutet.
The study found no significant association between exposure to pet cats and asthma outcomes. Moderate-to-severe asthma, based on prescribed medications, occurred in 9.6% of the cat-exposed children and 10.1% of the non-exposed children. Asthma exacerbations, or flare-ups, occurred in 3.3% of the cat-exposed children and 3.5% of the non-exposed children.
The research team also noted that the number of cats, the cat’s sex, and the cat’s age did not influence asthma outcomes. Among a subset of 1,428 children where spirometry data was available, there were no significant differences in common measures of lung function between those who lived with cats and those who did not.
Putri suggested that the high prevalence of cat allergens in public environments may explain the findings.
“Children who do not have cats at home may still be exposed in shared environments such as schools or public transportation, which could explain why we didn’t see a difference,” said Putri.
The authors cautioned that the study lacked data on specific allergen sensitization. Additionally, because the National Cat Register in Sweden is relatively new, some children living with cats may have been misclassified as unexposed.
