| But a newly published
study led by a University of Alberta professor has found that eating
fast food more than once or twice a week negated the beneficial effects
that breastfeeding has in protecting children from the respiratory
disease. The article appears online in the
international journal Clinical and Experimental Allergy based in
London, England. A number of different findings led the researchers to
their conclusion - showing links between fast food and asthma,
breastfeeding and asthma, and all three together.
"Like other studies, we found that fast-food
consumption was associated with asthma," said the senior author, Dr.
Anita Kozyrskyj (pronounced koh-ZUHR-skee), an associate professor in
the Department of Pediatrics in the U of A's Faculty of Medicine &
Dentistry.
The research confirmed the findings of many other
studies about the benefits of breastfeeding in relation to asthma.
Kozyrskyj et al. found that breastfeeding for too short a time was
linked to a higher risk of asthma, or conversely that children
exclusively breastfed 12 weeks or longer as infants had a lower risk.
"But this beneficial effect was only seen in children
who did not consume fast food, or only occasionally had fast food," she
added.
More than half the children studied ate fast food more
than twice a week.
The researchers suggested the prevalence of fast food
in today's society may explain why asthma rates keep rising even though
more mothers are breastfeeding.
The group did not look at why fast food might cause
asthma. But the authors suggest the high fat content, and high salt
levels (which can increase twitchy airways and wheezing) may be to
blame.
Kozyrskyj, an authority in the area of child health
and asthma research, was recruited to the University of Alberta from the
University of Manitoba to assume the position of Research Chair,
Maternal-Child Health and the Environment.
She conducted the study with Dr. Allan Becker while at
the University of Manitoba. The team looked at about 700 Manitoba
children, about 250 of whom had asthma and 475 who did not. The research
was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the
analyses were conducted by Xiao-Mei Mai, a postdoctoral student at the U
of M.
Kozyrskyj noted that nutrition is only one of many
factors involved in asthma. "But this is an interesting finding, and we
hope it will stimulate other researchers to follow up and investigate
this in more depth, perhaps with a cohort study."
She was a co-author in a different study that received
widespread publicity last year when the researchers reported children
who received antibiotics in the first year of life were at higher risk
of developing asthma later on.
Other research by Kozyrskyj, published in the journal
Allergy last year, suggested that girls who do not drink enough
milk and are overweight may be at greater risk for asthma.
http://www.med.ualberta.ca/ |
