Luhua News
Omega-3s During Pregnancy to Reduce Asthma Risk
From Nutritionaloutlook
Just before the publication of the aforementioned meta-analysis, another positive study2 on omega-3 supplementation was released. This study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that pregnant women who took omega-3s during their third trimester of pregnancy had offspring with reduced levels of asthma.
The study included 736 pregnant women who were randomized to consume 2.4 g of omega-3 fish oil or a placebo every day from 24 weeks after gestation until the end of their pregnancy. Researchers then followed up with 695 of the children for the first five years of their lives for incidence of persistent wheeze or asthma, as well as lower respiratory tract infections, asthma exacerbations, eczema, and allergic sensitization.
Researchers found that the treatment group offspring presented with a 16.9% risk of persistent wheeze or asthma, compared to a 23.7% risk in the control group—a difference of nearly 7%, or a relative reduction of 30.7%. The reduction in asthma risk was especially pronounced in offspring of mothers in the lowest third for EPA and DHA blood levels at baseline—a 17.5% risk for the treatment group compared to a 34.1% risk for the control group.
Meanwhile, the treatment group also had a reduced risk of infections of the lower respiratory tract, but there were no statistically signification associations for the other measured end points.
“Supplementation with [omega-3s] in the third trimester of pregnancy reduced the absolute risk of persistent wheeze or asthma and infections of the lower respiratory tract in offspring by approximately 7 percentage points, or one third,” researchers concluded.
