Child asthma rate rockets to 1.4m

The number of children suffering from asthma has rocketed in the past 30 years, a new study has found.

Rates of the condition among children have risen fourfold since the Seventies and have doubled in the last 10 years.

With almost one and a half million children living with asthma, Britain has one of the highest rates in Europe.

The findings, released today by the British Thoracic Society, are based on research carried out among 11-year-olds.

Dr Michael Burr, epidemiologist at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, who led the research, said: "With over 1.4 million children suffering from asthma in the UK, we all need to have a better understanding of the condition and measures to combat it."

The researchers said the rise was due to environmental pollution and passive smoking.

The research was presented at a meeting in London today, along with a study that found a fifth of British Athletes at this year's Olympics in Athens had some degree of asthma without realising it. A new test meant they were diagnosed for the first time.

The technique - known as eucapnic voluntary hyperventilation - is said to be the gold standard for testing athletes for asthma.

While one in five of the Team GB members were found to have undiagnosed asthma, the new technique also found that a quarter of athletes who had previously been diagnosed with the condition were not suffering from it at all.