Can supplements taken during pregnancy ward off asthma for my child?
Supplements like fish oil and vitamin D have been studied to see if taken during pregnancy could decrease the risk of asthma for a baby. Here's what you should know.
More and more, scientists are discovering that asthma is a very varied disease, in character of presentation and in severity. The factors that could affect the incidence and severity of asthma have been categorized into broad categories which include not only genetics or family history, but also environmental exposures in diet or nutrition, lifestyle, exercise, cleanliness, or exposure to allergens such as animals or dust.
When it comes to diet, there have been a multitude of ideas suggesting that certain foods and food supplements, or the amount that we consume may either improve or worsen asthma over the years. Obesity has been linked with asthma, and so has the ingestion of certain types of meats. On the other hand, Vitamin D and fish oil have been studied to see if the immune system effects found in the laboratory can be translated into real life. More recently, probiotics and the network of microscopic organisms that live in symbiosis with humans, called the microbiome, have also been found to impact how our immune systems function.
In the case of fish oil, the beneficial effects in asthma have been demonstrated for many years. The component in fish oil that is believed to deliver a beneficial effect in asthma are the omega-3 fatty acids. A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine looked at the effects of supplementation of n-3 long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, or n-3 LCPUFA, in the form of fish oil, in pregnant women on the development of asthma in their offspring. The authors randomly assigned 736 pregnant women to receive either supplementation with n-3 LCPUFA or placebo during pregnancy, and then looked at the incidence of asthma during the first 3 years of life. They found that in the supplementation group, the risk of permanent wheeze was 16.9 percent, 7 percent points lower than the rate in the placebo group, who received olive oil instead. This translated to a relative reduction of approximately 30 percent.
While this is an exciting finding that confirms other studies on the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids in allergic diseases, it should be noted that the authors found no difference in asthma attacks or eczema. Further studies are needed to improve our understanding of the effects of fish oil on asthma. In the meantime, this article and others have shown little risk to supplementing with fish oil during pregnancy, and the same can be said for Vitamin D supplementation. But pregnant women should always consult their obstetrician or family doctor for individual advice regarding supplementation.
It is becoming increasingly apparent that what we eat, or what we may be exposed to even when still in the womb, may have a profound effect on whether or not we develop allergic diseases, and to what degree. While this may be true, it is also important to understand that what we know is very limited, and inherent individual genetic differences may play a significant role in determining the degree to which certain foods or supplements may affect us. There is clearly a lot of inter-related factors in operation, and much remains to be discovered. So, stay tuned!
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