Worried sick?
13 June 2005

Scientists in the US have found a link between asthma and panic disorder in adults. They say that people with asthma are more likely to develop panic disorder, while having panic disorder is a reliable predictor of asthma.

'Panic disorder' was defined in the study as having had at least one panic attack each week for the previous year.

The researchers in Maryland studied a group of 591 adults whose health was monitored over a 20 year period, beginning in 1979 when they were aged 19.

Assessing the participants in 1999, they found that people with asthma were more than four times more likely to develop panic disorder than their counterparts who did not have asthma. Participants with panic disorder were more than six times more likely to experience asthma symptoms than others.

Suggested causes

Because of the strong link between the two conditions, scientists believe that there may be underlying causes shared by both. They suggested that this could be genetic, as they found that having childhood anxiety and/or a family history of asthma and allergy were common factors in developing asthma and in having panic disorder.

They also discovered that people who smoked had a greater risk of developing panic disorder than non-smokers, and proposed that this could also be a cause in exacerbating the relationship between asthma and panic.

Mild panic

Asthma UK experts were at pains to emphasise that the two-way link exists only between asthma and panic disorder – not general feelings of panic.

'The researchers found that people with asthma were more likely to panic - possibly due to the stress of having a life-threatening condition. However, they found no evidence that experiencing relatively mild panic triggered asthma symptoms,' said Martin Dockrell, Asthma UK's Assistant Director of Policy & Public Affairs.

'This indicates that there is a minimum intensity and frequency of panic attacks, a 'tipping point' perhaps, that is found in panic disorder, and that people need to experience in order to develop asthma.'

Benefits for people with asthma

Dr Gregor Hasler, who led the study, believes that his team's findings could have positive benefits for people with asthma: 'The possibility that appropriate treatment of panic attacks has the potential to decrease future asthma activity is suggested by the predictive ability of a panic disorder on subsequent asthma activity.'

'When two health conditions are closely linked it can be hard to say which causes which, or whether there is a shared underlying cause,' added Martin Dockrell. 'In this case the author suggests that genetic factors increase the risk of asthma and of panic disorder.

'This study also provides strong, scientific grounds for taking seriously the feelings of people with asthma,' he continued. 'It shows the serious emotional consequences of having asthma and underlines what people with asthma tell us - that asthma is a deeply frightening condition and that this fear can have harmful effects.'

The study is published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.