 Breastfeeding Benefits are Cancelled out by Fast-Food Diets in Preventing Asthma
Source: University of Alberta Date: 1/28/09
Eating fast food more than once or twice a week negated the beneficial effects that breastfeeding has in protecting children from asthma, according to a study published in the journal Clinical & Experimental Allergy.
Researchers
at the University of Alberta profiled about 700 Manitoba children; 250
had asthma, 475 did not. The researchers did not follow the children
from birth as in a cohort study, but used a questionnaire to gather
their data when the children were seen between the ages of 8 to 10.
Senior
author, Anita Kozyrskyj, an associate professor in the Department of
Pediatrics in the UofA’s Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, noted
that nutrition is only one of many factors involved in asthma. "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. Fast food has many negative consequences on the health of
children and it remains to be confirmed whether asthma is one of them.
Our results will prompt researchers to ask this question," she said.
The
research also found that breastfeeding for too short a time was linked
to a higher risk of asthma, and 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.
The
children who had been breastfed for less than three months and also ate
lots of fast food had the highest risk of all. These children "had a
greater than twofold risk of asthma, compared to infants who had been
exclusively breastfed for a longer time period and who did not become
high consumers of fast food in later childhood," the study said.
* Sources: University of Alberta: Fast-food diet cancels out benefits of breastfeeding in preventing asthma: U of A researcher
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