Children of immigrants from India were more likely to develop atopic diseases if born in the United States or Canada than those who emigrated with their parents, according to new research published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: Global.
Additionally, parents overall had lower rates of conditions like asthma and food allergies than their children born in North America. This is a trend that pediatricians and allergists who emigrated from India have noted anecdotally.
Ruchi Gupta, MD, MPH, a pediatrician and director of the Center for Food Allergy and Asthma Research at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago and senior author of the study, said she was inspired to conduct the research because of her own experience.
“Both our kids are highly atopic, and we are not,” Gupta said….