Article Text
Abstract
Background Breathlessness is a major cause of suffering and disability globally. The symptom relates to multiple factors including asthma and lung function, which are influenced by hereditary factors. No study has evaluated potential inheritance of breathlessness itself across generations.
Methods We analysed the association between breathlessness in parents and their offspring in the Respiratory Health in Northern Europe, Spain and Australia generation study. Data on parents and offspring aged ≥18 years across 10 study centres in seven countries included demographics, self-reported breathlessness, asthma, depression, smoking, physical activity level, measured Body Mass Index and spirometry. Data were analysed using multivariable logistic regression accounting for clustering within centres and between siblings.
Results A total of 1720 parents (mean age at assessment 36 years, 55% mothers) and 2476 offspring (mean 30 years, 55% daughters) were included. Breathlessness was reported by 809 (32.7%) parents and 363 (14.7%) offspring. Factors independently associated with breathlessness in parents and offspring included obesity, current smoking, asthma, depression, lower lung function and female sex. After adjusting for potential confounders, parents with breathlessness were more likely to have offspring with breathlessness, adjusted OR 1.8 (95% CI 1.1 to 2.9). The association was not modified by sex of the parent or offspring.
Conclusion Parents with breathlessness were more likely to have children who developed breathlessness, after adjusting for asthma, lung function, obesity, smoking, depression and female sex in both generations. The hereditary components of breathlessness need to be further explored.
- perception of asthma/breathlessness
- asthma
- clinical epidemiology
Data availability statement
Data are available upon reasonable request. Deidentified data underlying the analyses are available upon reasonable request to the Respiratory Health in Northern Europe, Spain and Australia generation study (email: postmottak@helse-bergen.no).
This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Data availability statement
Data are available upon reasonable request. Deidentified data underlying the analyses are available upon reasonable request to the Respiratory Health in Northern Europe, Spain and Australia generation study (email: postmottak@helse-bergen.no).
Supplementary materials
Supplementary Data
This web only file has been produced by the BMJ Publishing Group from an electronic file supplied by the author(s) and has not been edited for content.
Footnotes
Contributors Study conception and design: ME, AJ and CS; data acquisition: all authors except ME and AO; analysis: ME; first draft: ME, AJ and CS; interpretation, revision and approval of the final version to be published: all authors.
Funding ME was supported by unrestricted grants from the Swedish Society for Medical Research and the Swedish Research Council (Dnr: 2019-02081). Coordination and establishment of the Respiratory Health in Northern Europe, Spain and Australia (RHINESSA) study has received funding from the Research Council of Norway (grant numbers 274767, 214123, 228174, 230827 and 273838), ERC StG project BRuSH (#804199), the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement number 633212) (the ALEC Study WP2), the Bergen Medical Research Foundation and the Western Norwegian Regional Health Authorities (grant numbers 912011, 911892 and 911631). Study centres have further received local funding from the following: Bergen: the above grants, World University Network (REF and Sustainability grants), Norwegian Labour Inspection, the Norwegian Asthma and Allergy Association. Albacete and Huelva: Sociedad Española de Patología Respiratoria (SEPAR) Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria (FIS PS09). Göteborg, Umeå and Uppsala: the Swedish Heart and Lung Foundation, the Swedish Asthma and Allergy Association. Reykjavik: Iceland University. Melbourne: NHMRC Project Grant ID1128450, Melbourne University. Tartu: the Estonian Research Council (grant number PUT562). Århus: The Danish Wood Foundation (grant number 444508795), the Danish Working Environment Authority (grant number 20150067134), Aarhus University (PhD scholarship). The RHINE study has received funding from Danish Lung Association, Estonian Science Foundation, Icelandic Research Council, Norwegian Research Council, Norwegian Asthma and Allergy Association, Swedish Asthma and Allergy Association, Swedish Heart and Lung Foundation and Vårdal Foundation for Health Care Science and Allergy Research. The coordination of the ECRHS has been supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement number 633212) (the ALEC study), the Medical Research Council (ECRHS III) and the European Commission FP5 and FP7 (ECRHS I and II). ECRHS IV is being planned and the 10 RHINESSA study centres are funded by ERC StG project BRuSH (#804199) and by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement number 874703) (the EPHOR project). Further funding agencies for ECRHS are reported elsewhere.
Competing interests MJA reports grants from Pfizer, grants from Boehringer-Ingelheim, personal fees from Sanofi, other from Sanofi and personal fees from GSK, outside the submitted work.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.