Handedness, asthma and allergic disorders: is there an association?

Left-handedness has often been associated with asthma and allergic disorders. In view of previous findings, we investigated the distribution of laterality scores, using the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory, among 172 children. These children were asthmatic and allergic children of pre-school age and adolescence, who visited the Lung Function Laboratory of the Physiology Department of the University of Thessaly, and their controls. We failed to find an association of left-handedness and asthma at pre-school age. We found an association of left-handedness and other allergies at pre-school age and an association of left-handedness and asthma in adolescence, due to hereditary reasons. Our data suggest that both asthma or other allergies and handedness are inherited, especially through the maternal line.