(03-05-13) Research: Asthma found to be strongly associated to unhealthy Western dietary patterns

by David Gutierrez, staff writer

(NaturalNews) Evidence is increasingly emerging that a Western diet may be a
significant risk factor for asthma.

Asthma is a growing and serious health problem worldwide. According to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2003 asthma was responsible for
4,261 deaths, 484,000 hospitalizations, 1.2 million hospital outpatient visits
and 1.9 million emergency room visits across the United States.

One of the studies providing strong support for a link between asthma and a
Western diet was published in the European Respiratory Journal in 2008. French
and Mexican researchers divided 54,672 French women into three separate groups,
classified by their overall dietary habits: a "prudent" pattern, characterized
by high intake of fruits and vegetables; a "nuts and wine" pattern,
characterized by those foods; and a "Western" pattern, characterized by high
intake of cured meats, pizza, desserts and salty pies.

The researchers found that participants in the "Western" group experienced
significantly more asthma attacks than participants in the other groups, while
participants in the "nuts and wine" group (perhaps approximating the
Mediterranean diet) experienced significantly fewer.

"Overall diet could be involved in frequent asthma exacerbations, one aspect
of asthma severity," the researchers concluded.

Cut out those hamburgers
This was followed by a study published in the journal Thorax in 2010, which
looked at more than 50,000 children in 20 separate countries. The researchers
found that among children living in wealthy countries, eating three or more
hamburgers per week was associated with a significantly higher risk of
developing asthma. This link was not seen in poorer countries; in all
countries, however, a higher intake of fruits and vegetables was associated
with a significantly lower risk of developing asthma.

A 2013 study, published in the journal Allergy, found an even stronger effect,
with children who ate one hamburger per week shown to be 75 percent more likely
to suffer from asthma and twice as likely to suffer from wheezing as children
who ate fewer hamburgers. Other fast foods were also linked to increased asthma
risk.

Another large study, also published in 2013, looked not just at hamburgers but
at a large number of foods including meat, fish, fast food, dairy products,
eggs, fruits and vegetables, potatoes and various grain products. Only fast
food intake was significantly associated with increased asthma risk among both
younger and older children. Only consumption of fruit three or more times a
week was associated with a lower risk in both age groups.

Higher fast food intake also increased the occurrence and severity of asthma
symptoms in both younger and older children.

"Such consistency adds some weight to the possible causality of the
relationship," the researchers wrote.

Change your diet for immediate relief
According to a 2010 study conducted by researchers from the University of
Newcastle, a high-fat diet like the Western diet might not just increase your
risk of developing asthma, but may actually worsen the immediate effects of the
disease. Researchers assigned 40 participants to eat either a high-fat meal
containing 1,000 calories (52 percent from fat) or a low-fat meal containing
200 calories (13 percent from fat).

The researchers found that immediately after the high-fat meal, participants
had significantly higher levels of inflammation-triggering cells called
neutrophils in their sputum than participants who had eaten the low-fat meal.
In addition, three to four hours after the meal, participants in the high high-
fat group were less responsive to an asthma inhaler than those in the low-fat
group.

"This suggests that strategies aimed at reducing dietary fat intake may be
useful in managing asthma," researcher Lisa Wood said.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.vitasearch.com/get-clp-summary/37771

http://www.naturalhealingnews.com

http://www.naturalnews.com/039180_fast_food_allergies_asthma.html

http://www.naturalnews.com/029983_hamburgers_asthma.html

http://www.naturalnews.com/029832_fat_asthma.html

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