Do chesty children become chesty adults?

Do chesty children become chesty adults?The possible links between experiences in childhood and disease in adult life have become topical in recent years.1 The suggestion that chest illness in childhood may contribute to the development of chronic respiratory problems in middle and old age, however, has intrigued researchers for at least two decades.2Two chronic respiratory conditions of childhood, asthma and bronchiectasis, provide rather different models for such a link between childhood and adult disease.Childhood asthma, adult asthma, and chronic airflow obstruction Few studies provide prospective information on the long term prognosis of childhood asthma.Blair followed up 267 children who had attended his east London general practice with asthma under 12 years of age. 3 Twenty years later, one half had mild or no asthmatic symptoms but 21% had remained symptomatic throughout adolescence, and a further 27% had relapsed after at least three years free of symptoms.Relapse often occurred in the late teens, highlighting the problems of determining prognosis from many of the earlier clinical series with shorter periods of follow Up.3