Study Reinforces Correlation Between Antioxidants and Asthma

By Greg Arnold, DC, CSCS, May 18, 2006, abstracted from “Dietary antioxidants and asthma in adults�?in the May 2006 issue of Thorax

As a condition that affects more than 20 million Americans, including 6.1 million children,(1) asthma is recognized as “a major public health problem of increasing concern in the United States.�?As the third-ranking cause of hospitalization among those younger than 15 years of age, asthma costs $3.2 billion and accounts for 14 million lost school days each year.(2)

While environmental concerns, such as damp homes(3) and exposure to chemical-based cleaners(4) have been found to increase childhood asthma risk, asthma in adults has started to focus on consuming a western diet(5) and low antioxidant intake.(6) Now a new study(7) has started to reinforce this concept.

In the study, researchers gathered information from food diaries and compared antioxidant intake in 515 adults with diagnosed asthma to 515 healthy controls. Researchers found that over half of adults with asthma consumed no citrus fruits and that a high intake of citrus fruit (at least one citrus fruit per day) was “significantly associated with a [41%] reduced risk of asthma.�?Concerning individual antioxidants, researchers found that vitamin C and manganese “were inversely and independently associated with asthma.�?/FONT>