Parents with major depression or panic disorder are more likely to have children with asthma and other allergy-based conditions, according to study findings published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine. The fact that the association held only for biological children supports the idea of a "shared genetic liability."

Dr. Ramin Mojtabai, from Columbia University, in New York, assessed the link between childhood allergy disorders and parental major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and panic attacks in a sample of 9,240 parent-child pairs drawn from the 1999 US National Health Interview Survey.

The Composite International Diagnostic Interview, Short Form was used to make parental psychiatric diagnoses, and allergic disorders included hay fever, respiratory allergies, eczema, wheezing, food allergies and asthma.

A total of 8686 of the parent-child pairs were biological and 554 were nonbiological. Thirty-one percent of the children and 19 percent of the adults had allergic disorders. Major depression was diagnosed in 6 percent of the parents, panic attacks in 3 percent and generalized anxiety disorder in 3 percent.

A statistically significant association between major depression and panic attacks in parents and allergic disorders in children was seen only in biological parent-child pairs.

Further, in analyses restricted to biological parent-child pairs, the association between parental major depression and panic attacks and childhood allergy-based disorders was statistically significant only in mothers.

Mojtabai, who is currently at the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, observed an association between parental allergic disorders and childhood allergic disorders in biological and nonbiological parent-child pairs. There were no gender differences found in the association of parental and childhood allergic disorders.

An additive effect of parental allergic disorders and psychopathology was observed in the risk of allergic disorders in children

These findings should be viewed in the context of previous studies that found an increased risk of depression in children of parents with allergic disorders, Mojtabai told Reuters Health.

"In this context, data from the present study further support the possibility of common genes for depression and panic disorder on the one hand, and allergic disorders on the other hand," Mojtabai said.