A study of autonomic nervous system status in children of asthmatic parents.

ABSTRACT

Asthmatic patients are known to have autonomic abnormalities. This study evaluated the status of autonomic nervous system in children of asthmatic parents for any occurrences of autonomic abnormalities that are known to occur in asthma. In this study autonomic function tests were conducted in children (5 to 10 years of age) divided into two groups Group A had children from non-asthmatic parents as Control Group and Group B had children from asthmatic parents as Test Group. Both the groups had healthy children showing no clinical signs and symptoms of asthma, allergy or any illness known to affect autonomic nervous system. In response to various parasympathetic function tests (S/L ratio, 3015 ratio, valsalva ratio and tachycardia ratio) and sympathetic function tests (handgrip test and cold pressor test) done, the two groups did not show any statistically significant dissimilarity for any of the parameters. The results of our study showed that there were no autonomic abnormalities found in the children of asthmatic parents. Thus this study indicates that the autonomic defects seen in asthmatics could be secondary to asthma and not because of autonomic aberrations inheritance in asthmatics as shown by earlier few studies supporting the possible role of inherited automatic reactivity in the pathogenesis and progression of asthma.