Aubier Michel, Neukirch Françoise, Annesi-Maesano Isabella
Service de Pneumologie, INSERM U700, Hôpital Bichat, 75018 Paris.
Bull Acad Natl Med. 2005 Oct;189(7):1419-34; discussion 1434.
Up to 10% of adults and 35% of children worldwide suffer from asthma. The incidence of asthma is also higher in children than in adults, possibly owing to a "cohort" effect. Recent population-based studies show that the increase in the prevalence of asthma noted worldwide in the past 30 years has started to subside in industrialised countries. This phenomenon has been accompanied by a parallel increase in the use of asthma medications. Possible explanations for this increase include the "hygiene hypothesis", which implicates diminished exposure to microbial pathogens but was recently challenged by new biological and immunological findings. Asthma might result from the interactions between individual and environmental factors (diet, air pollution, etc.), but further investigations are needed to understand the precise pathophysiological mechanisms of asthma.
全球多达10%的成年人和35%的儿童患有哮喘。哮喘的发病率在儿童中也高于成年人，这可能是由于“队列”效应。最近基于人群的研究表明，过去30年里在全球范围内观察到的哮喘患病率上升现象在工业化国家已开始消退。这一现象同时伴随着哮喘药物使用的相应增加。对此增加的可能解释包括“卫生假说”，该假说认为接触微生物病原体减少，但最近受到了新的生物学和免疫学发现的挑战。哮喘可能由个体因素与环境因素（饮食、空气污染等）之间的相互作用导致，但仍需要进一步研究以了解哮喘的确切病理生理机制。
