Asthma and allergies may reduce risk.

• Position: Brain Cancer - Brief Article

Having asthma, hay fever, or another allergic condition may reduce the risk of developing one fatal form of brain cancer, suggests a study from Ohio State University, Columbus. New evidence for this relationship is found in the normal variation of two genes.

"Variations in certain genes may make a person more prone to develop asthma or allergies and those same variations may protect adults against the most common kind of brain cancer," says Judith Schwartzbaum, associate professor of public health.

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) affects three out of 100,000 people, a rate that quadruples among those who are 65 and older. The average five-year survival rate from the time of diagnosis is 3.3%.

The current study supports several years' worth of research by other scientists who have suggested an inverse relationship between asthma, allergies, and GBM. Those studies, however, were based only on information that participants gave about their history of asthma and allergies, not on data from DNA testing.

"We needed an objective way to measure the accuracy of allergy self reports, one that isn't...