Eating a Mediterranean diet could help protect children from respiratory allergies and asthma, a study suggests.
UK, Greek and Spanish researchers assessed the diet and health of almost 700 children living in rural areas of Crete, where such conditions are rare.
They found those with a diet rich in fruit and vegetables were protected against both conditions.
UK experts said the study, in Thorax, added to existing evidence that diet could help control asthma symptoms.
More than five million people in the UK currently have asthma, and one in 10 children is affected.
Overall, children who ate a Mediterranean diet rich in fruit, vegetables and fish had a lower chance of developing asthma or wheeze over their lifetime.
Mediterranean diet
Eating three or more burgers a week was linked to a higher risk of asthma and wheeze but a diet that was generally high in meat did not increase the risk.
The authors, writing in the journal Thorax, said: “Fruit and vegetables contain antioxidants and other biologically active factors which may contribute to the favourable effect of fruit consumption in asthma.
“In particular, foods rich in vitamin C have been reported to relate to better lung function and fewer asthma symptoms.”
They said carotenoids – contained in fruit and vegetables such as sweet potatoes and carrots – and vitamins C and E also have a positive effect on lung function.
According to the research , the authors wrote, “Fruit and vegetables contain antioxidants and other biologically active factors which may contribute to the favourable effect of fruit consumption in asthma.
“In particular, foods rich in vitamin C have been reported to relate to better lung function and fewer asthma symptoms.”
The carotenoids and vitamins C and E in fruit and vegetables were good for lung function.
The authors concluded that “adherence to a Mediterranean diet may provide protection against wheeze and asthma in childhood”.
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August 22nd, 2010 at 5:13 pm
IF YOUR doctor suggested burning the inside of your lungs to treat asthma you might be tempted to seek a second opinion. For Alison Martin, however, the treatment offered the chance of a healthy life and she jumped at it.
After years of repeated asthma attacks, high doses of drugs and frequent hospital admissions the 55-year-old medical receptionist from High Peak in Derbyshire had almost run out of options.
“I was admitted to hospital on many occasions and suffered severe attacks all the time,” says Alison. “It was so bad I would need intravenous steroids to get my asthma under control. Any time I got a cold or a chest infection it just got out of hand.”
Since becoming the first person in Britain to undergo the radical “burning” therapy in 2004 Alison hasn’t been back to hospital, rarely suffers attacks and has drastically reduced the amount of medicine she needs.
“It’s been a wonderful breakthrough for me,” she says. “I really believe it’s the best thing I’ve ever had done. It’s completely changed my life.”
Bronchial thermoplasty has been subjected to clinical trials for nearly a decade. The US Food and Drug Administration recently sanctioned its use in patients who fail to get their asthma under control with conventional medicines.
It’s a move which could pave the way for the treatment on the NHS, giving hope to the estimated 500,000 UK sufferers for whom medication does not work.
About 5.2 million people in Britain have asthma. According to the charity Asthma UK it kills one person every seven hours and leaves more than 70,000 needing hospital treatment each year.
Treatments have advanced in the last two decades. Many patients live normal lives by taking a small daily dose of inhaled steroids which prevents inflammation in the airways and reduces attacks.
September 20th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
Challenging the widespread assumption that obesity itself is a risk factor for asthma, a new study has revealed that even children of a healthy weight who have an imbalanced metabolism due to poor diet or exercise may be at increased risk of the disease.
“Our research showed that early abnormalities in lipid and/or glucose metabolism may be associated to the development of asthma in childhood,” said lead author Giovanni Piedimonte, who is professor and chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at West Virginia University School of Medicine, physician-in-chief at WVU Children”s Hospital and director of WVU”s Pediatric Research Institute.
“Our findings also imply a strong and direct influence of metabolic pathways on the immune mechanisms, both innate and adaptive, involved in the pathogenesis of asthma in children” Piedimonte added.
The research implicates metabolic disorders directly in the development of asthma, and points to a new way of viewing diet and lifestyle as risk factors for asthma, even in children who are not obviously obese or overweight.
September 20th, 2010 at 5:53 pm
Vitamin D may help those suffering from asthma, according to experts.
“There is a possible cause-and-effect relationship between vitamin D deficiency and uncontrolled asthma,” said allergist Manbir Sandhu, lead author and ACAAI member.
“Evidence suggests that vitamin D has a number of biologic factors that are important in regulating key mechanisms in asthma.”
Authors conducted a review of almost 60 years of literature on vitamin D and asthma. According to the article, vitamin D deficiency is associated with increased airway hyperresponsiveness, lower lung functions, and inferior asthma control.
Vitamin D deficiency is more common with obesity, in African American ethnicity and westernization of countries reflecting a higher-risk population for asthma. The authors recommend that long-term interventional trials be conducted in asthma patients.
Co-author: “Vitamin D can complement your prescribed asthma treatment plan as it has been shown to have some anti-inflammatory properties, but should never be used as an alternative to prescribed medication.”
“Asthma is a serious and sometimes life threatening disease and needs to be treated that way. Always discuss use of supplements with your allergist.”
The article has been published this month in Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI).
September 20th, 2010 at 7:26 pm
Teenagers who take paracetamol regularly more than double their chances of getting asthma, says a study.
A study of more than 300,000 teenagers, aged 13 and 14 years, found those who took paracetamol once a month were 2.5 times as likely to have asthma than those who didn’t.
The research also linked paracetamol use to allergic nasal congestion and eczema, reports the Telegraph.
A Medical Research Institute team from New Zealand which conducted the study attributed the growing risk of asthma, eczema and nasal allergies to pacaretamol.
They indicated that the painkiller might interfere with the immune system and cause inflammation in the airways, says the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
Richard Beasley, professor of medicine at the Medical Research Institute, said that almost half of severe asthma cases could be prevented if use of paracetamol was avoided.
Teenagers who used paracetamol once a year were 38 percent more likely to have allergic nasal congestion and those who used it once a month were more than twice as likely to have the condition than those who never took the painkiller.
For eczema, once a year users of paracetamol were almost a third more likely to have the skin condition and once a month users were just under twice as likely to have it as non-users.
October 4th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
A new study has revealed that individuals with food allergies are more likely to have asthma attacks.
Food allergies are more common among people with asthma and may contribute to asthma attacks, according to one of the most comprehensive surveys of food allergies.
Andrew H. Liu of National Jewish Health and his colleagues also suggested that food allergies are more prevalent among children, males and non-Hispanic blacks.
“Our study suggests that food allergies may be an important factor, and even an under-recognized trigger for severe asthma exacerbations. People with a food allergy and asthma should closely monitor both conditions and be aware that they might be related,” said Liu.
The researchers analysed data from 8,203 people, aged 1 to greater than 60, who completed the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in 2005-2006, and had their blood tested for antibodies to four specific foods: peanuts, milk, eggs and shrimp.
Depending on the IgE antibody levels found in participants’ blood, they were categorized as sensitised to one or more of the foods or not sensitised.
The sensitised participants were subdivided into those with an unlikely (10-20 percent), possible (50 percent) and likely (greater than 95 percent) chance of having food allergies.
Likely food allergies were twice as common among participants who had ever received an asthma diagnosis as among those with no asthma diagnosis.
Those who currently have asthma were 3.8 times as likely to have food allergies as those who had previously been diagnosed with the disease but no longer had it.
Those who had visited an emergency department for asthma in the past year were almost seven times as likely to have food allergies as those who had ever been diagnosed with asthma but not visited an emergency department.
Overall, 15.8 percent of participants who had visited the emergency department for asthma had IgE levels indicating possible or likely food allergies.
Researchers could not determine if food allergies actually cause asthma attacks or if asthma and food allergies are both manifestations of a severe allergic profile.
The findings were reported in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
October 8th, 2010 at 8:28 am
Doubling the dose of inhaled steroids doesn’t appear to dampen asthma attacks, despite the practice being recommended by many doctors, Canadian researchers said Thursday.
More than seven percent of adult Americans, and even more kids, have asthma, causing millions of visits to emergency rooms and doctors’ offices every year.
Until recently, national guidelines advised people to double the dose of inhaled steroids when they felt the telltale signs of an asthma flare-up coming on, such as chest tightness and coughing.
Those steroid medications, such as Pulmicort or Flovent, keep airway inflammation under control on a daily basis in asthmatics. So doctors had reasoned higher doses might work in emergencies.
“It is a reasonable thing to try,” said Dr. Andy Nish, an asthma expert at the Allergy and Asthma Care Center in Gainesville, Georgia, who was not involved in the new study, published by The Cochrane Collaboration.
“This article shows that sometimes we do things that seem reasonable and yet maybe aren’t as effective as we would like to think.”
The Canadian researchers pooled the best data available on outcomes with the higher doses, including five clinical trials that assigned 1,250 patients randomly to take either the standard dose of inhaled steroids or an increased dose.
Overall, doubling or even quadrupling the amount of inhalant at the onset of a flare-up didn’t make patients any less likely to need rescue treatment with swallowed or injected steroids such as prednisone.
While effective, those stronger treatments may cause serious side effects like depression or bone thinning, so patients and doctors prefer to limit their use.
Except for 28 patients, all study participants were adults, so the findings may not apply to children.
“The most important strategy to reduce the rate and severity of flare-ups is to take daily preventive medications for asthma,” Dr. Francine M. Ducharme, who worked on the study, said in an e-mail to Reuters Health.
Ducharme, of the University of Montreal, said it was still common for doctors to recommend high-dose inhaled steroids to stave off attacks.
Instead, she said, patients should try rescue inhalers, which contain short-acting drugs such as albuterol that open up the airways. If that doesn’t work, swallowed or injected steroids may be necessary.
Nish said the best thing to do is try to prevent flare-ups. “Avoid cigarette smoke, stay indoors if it is a high-smog day, avoid exertion if it’s a cold or a hot day, and get your flu shot.”
And with the right medication, he said, many asthma attacks can be prevented.
“We can’t keep you from getting a cold, but hopefully we can keep that cold from causing significant exacerbations in your asthma,” he said.
October 16th, 2010 at 8:14 pm
Canadian medical researchers are conducting a 2.5-million-dollar study to answer whether giving antibiotics to infants in their first year of life triggers asthma and allergies that develop later on in childhood.
More than 50 percent of Canadian infants receive a prescription for antibiotics before they turn one year old, reports Discovery News.
The study aim is two-fold: first, to discern how intestinal bacteria inside newborns changes after taking antibiotics, and second, to study if those changes trigger medical conditions later.
The researchers are intrigued by microbiota. Considered to be “good” intestinal bacteria, microbiota protect against harmful bacteria and help the body absorb nutrients.
Except no one is born with microbiota. It develops during the first year of life. Hence the age of the research subjects.
The study”s proof will be in the dirty diapers. Researchers will analyze the composition of microbiota from fecal samples at three months and again, at one year of age. DNA culled from the baby poop will identify bacteria in the microbiota.