Children who take oral steroids to treat asthma or autoimmune diseases have an increased risk of diabetes, high blood pressure and blood clots, according to Rutgers researchers. Researchers examined the records of 933,000 American children from ages 1 to 18 with or without autoimmune diseases, such as inflammatory bowel disease, juvenile arthritis or psoriasis.
Among those without an autoimmune disease, about 2 in 3 children who received prescriptions for steroids had evidence of asthma. Children who were receiving high steroid doses experienced complications at much higher rates than children taking low doses or those who had taken steroids previously.
Among the complications studied, high blood pressure occurred most commonly with steroid treatment. All of these complications were more common among children with autoimmune diseases, independent of the steroid effect.
The vast majority of children taking brief courses of steroids for conditions such as asthma, for instance, will not experience these complications, according to study author Daniel Horton, an assistant professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
“While children receiving high-dose steroids were at substantially higher risk for developing diabetes, high blood pressure or blood clots relative to children not taking these medicines, the absolute risks of these complications were still small,” Horton said.
Source: Newswise Sept. 17, 2020