New research by an SFU professor has shed light on previously overlooked links between environmental exposure and asthma in children.

In the largest study conducted of its kind, SFU’s health science department’s Timothy Takaro, along with AllerGen research centre, published the first year of data examining the pre-birth and young environmental exposures of over 3,600 babies.

The study spanned from 2008 to 2012 across four major Canadian cities, including Vancouver, to search for the link between developmental diseases like asthma and an infant’s environmental exposures.

Despite it being the most common chronic childhood disease, the causes of asthma remain unknown. Takaro’s research is driven by the question: “What about the early life environment and the interaction between the child’s genes sets up risk for [the development] of asthma?”

Takaro is a physician and scientist with degrees in epidemiology and toxicology, with a residency in internal medicine. He is part of AllerGen’s CHILD (Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development) study, which attempts to find a link between an infant’s exposure to numerous substances — including mould, dust, pollutants, and chemicals — and the development of asthma and other childhood developmental diseases.

By finding the root cause of asthma, researchers are looking for a way to eliminate the condition, thus eliminating the need for costly and emotionally draining physician visits, medication, hospitalization, and loss of work time. “If we could prevent asthma, we wouldn’t have to treat it — that’s the goal,” said Takaro.

For the CHILD study, numerous environmental exposures, ranging from cleaning products to traffic-related air pollution, were measured in the homes of the infants. Both physical samples and questionnaires were used in surveying the 3600 households. The survey asked questions regarding any potential leaks in the household, as well as when and of what material the house was built.

As the study is only in its preliminary stages, Takaro and AllerGen have not found any definitive links between the environment and these developmental diseases.

However, a paper Takaro worked on, published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives, offers data that suggests that air pollutants have an adverse effect. Household pets, long believed to be irritants of asthma and allergies, may actually prepare infants for future exposures and even make them less susceptible to asthma.

The ultimate goal of his numerous research projects, according to Takaro, is to “design a house that would be allergen free, [by using] carefully monitored moisture [and air pollution levels through filtration].”

He continued, saying that future studies “would test babies who lived in those homes, compared to babies who were born in standard homes.” This sort of “intervention trial” would bring researchers closer to developing a home that prevents asthma.

Takaro asserted, “The government needs to fund intervention trials and needs to stop subsidizing drug company trials. Big [pharmaceutical companies] receive a lot of government money to test all their drugs, but [scientists that try] to prevent disease do not.”