What's more, being depressed increased asthmatic teens' likelihood of using drugs, alcohol and cigarettes, Dr Bruce G. Bender of the University of Colorado Health & Sciences Centre in Denver reports.

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Cigarettes are particularly deadly for people with asthma, Bender notes, because smoking can speed lung deterioration and blunt the effectiveness of asthma medications. There is some evidence that both smoking and depression are more common among asthmatic individuals, he adds.

To investigate, Bender looked at data from 13 917 high school students participating in the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention's 2005 Youth Risk Behaviour Survey. The students were from 159 high schools in 40 states, providing a nationally representative sample. A total of 720 subjects currently had asthma.

Asthma, suicide linked
Depressive symptoms, cigarette use and cocaine use were all more frequent in the 5.2 percent of teens with asthma. Of those who reported they contemplated suicide, 67 percent reported using marijuana, 40 percent smoked cigarettes, 37 percent reported binge drinking and 30 used cocaine in the last 30 days.

"Within all race, sex and age groups, the probability of suicidal ideation was approximately doubled in youth with asthma," Bender states.

"The high frequency of depression in adolescents with asthma is most likely a consequence of a disease that impedes breathing, interferes with age-level activities, and complicates the adolescent process of developing a self identity different from family," Bender notes in his report.

The findings show that adolescents with asthma should be screened for depression, and that they may also be in greater need of interventions targeted at preventing substance abuse, he concludes.

SOURCE: Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, October 2007. - (Reuters Health)

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