Healthier Diet May Lower Asthma Risk
Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 8:46AM
If you want to protect kids against asthma, you might try feeding them fewer burgers and more fruit and fish. That's the latest word from a team of European researchers who looked at data collected worldwide on 50,000 children between 8 and 12 years old. The investigators found that the link between asthma and burgers was strongest in countries where fast-food diets are most common. Interestingly, the study didn’t identify an association between asthma and eating meat, a finding that led the researchers to suggest that contributing lifestyle and environmental factors may be linked to fast-food burgers. As for the fruits, the researchers said that the antioxidants they contain - particularly those high in vitamin C - could support respiratory health and have been linked to better lung function and fewer asthma symptoms. The omega-3 fatty acids in fish have anti-inflammatory effects that could be protective. Asthma is the most common chronic childhood disease. About 10 million kids in the U.S. have been diagnosed with it. The study was published in the June, 2010, issue of Thorax, a British Medical Journal.
Read more about treating kids with asthma.