环境性吸烟与儿童呼吸健康

Environmental tobacco smoke and respiratory health in children

环境性吸烟(ETS)又称二手烟、被动吸烟、间接吸烟,是影响儿童呼吸健康的主要风险因素之一。ETS中除了包含与主流烟雾相同的大量有害化学物质,其中含有的颗粒尺寸还要远小于主流烟雾,对儿童的呼吸道更具破坏力。研究表明,很多儿童的健康问题和成人一样与二手烟的吸入有关。而且,处于生长发育期的儿童对二手烟的吸入更加敏感。除了对儿童的呼吸系统发育造成不利影响外,二手烟的吸入还会导致多种与呼吸健康相关的疾病,如上、下呼吸道感染、哮喘、咳嗽等。如果母亲是烟民,发育中的胎儿在其母亲吸烟时也会通过脐带血所传递的有害物质而受到ETS影响,这时胎盘对ETS的侵害没有任何防御作用。更为严重的是,胎儿的遗传表型可能会因为ETS的影响而发生改变,在出生后表现为哮喘等疾病。因此,世界各国越来越关注ETS对儿童健康的影响,相关研究也很多。本文将综述该领域的最新研究进展。

Exposure to environmental tobacco smoke（ETS） is also called as second hand smoking or passive smoking.It is a major risk factor for poor respiratory health in children.Besides including plenty of harm chemicals,the size of the particle in ETS is much smaller than that in the main stream smoke.Thus,it has a greater penetrability in the children＇s airways.As adults,many problems of children＇s health are associated with ETS.Furthermore,developing children are more susceptive to ETS.Exposure to ETS not only has harm effect on the children＇s respiratory system,but also has been shown to be associated with the increased prevalence of many respiratory diseases,such as upper and lower respiratory tract infections,asthma,and cough.If mothers are smokers,developing fetuses are also exposed to ETS via the umbilical cord blood.Placentas do not offer any barriers to the penetration of ETS into the fetus.Ge netic phenotypes of fetuses may be changed by the ETS and therefore makes them more prone to develop asthma later in life.An increasing attention is paid to the harmful effects of ETS on the children＇s health,so there are many related studies.This paper reviews some up-to-date progress.