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Study: Allergic Diseases May Be Linked to Risk of Psychiatric Disorders

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Allergic diseases such as asthma were associated with a 1.66-fold increased hazard of psychiatric disorders in Taiwan.

Allergic diseases such as asthma were associated with a 1.66-fold increased hazard of psychiatric disorders in Taiwan, according to a large study published in Frontiers in Psychiatry. The researchers said it is the first study to find a connection between common allergic diseases and the overall risk of developing psychiatric disorders.

Almost 11% of patients with common allergic diseases developed a psychiatric disorder within a 15-year period, compared to only 6.7% of those without.

The data was drawn from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Program. A total of 186,588 enrolled patients, with 46,647 study subjects who had suffered from allergic diseases, and 139,941 controls matched for sex and age, from the Longitudinal Health Insurance Dataset of 2000-2015, were selected from a sub-dataset of the National Health Insurance Research Database.

Results showed that 5038, or 10.8%, developed psychiatric disorders, a statistically significant difference from the control group&shy;—9376, or 6.7%. A risk model analysis showed that the adjusted hazards ratio was 1.659 (95% CI, 1.602-1.717; P <.001).

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