Childhood Asthma, Traced to Low Vitamin E Intake during Pregnancy

Filed in archive Studies on September 5, 2006

As a mother I would feel horrendously guilty if in the future a medical doctor will tell me that the reason for my child's condition is something that I ate or did not eat when I was pregnant.

Indeed it is medically valid that women should be extra careful for any food, drug or even vitamin supplements when pregnant. Women are always reminded that their body is not their own anymore the moment little lives start to develop in their wombs. For this very reason, it wouldn't hurt to follow religiously what your gynecologist tells you to take in or not.

Like this new research study published in the first issue for September 2006 of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (published by the American Thoracic Society) which reported that children whose mothers had a low intake of vitamin E during pregnancy are more likely to develop wheezing and asthma by age five.

The study, headed by Graham Devereux, M.D., Ph.D., of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom, assessed maternal nutrient and respiratory status in 1,253 mothers and children during a five-year period.

The study authors found that children born to mothers from the lowest quintile of vitamin E intake were over five times more likely to manifest early persistent asthma than children whose mothers were in the highest quintile.

"Our findings suggest that vitamin E has a dual effect on lung function and airway inflammation and that the effects could change at differing periods of prenatal and early life," said Dr. Devereux.

"Lung function was associated with early vitamin E exposure independent of atopy, whereas allergic airway inflammation was associated with vitamin E exposure in later pregnancy."

For mothers in the U.K., the said study cited vegetable oils (sunflower, rapeseed and corn), margarine, wheat germ, nuts and sunflower seeds as major food sources of vitamin E.

Read the full report.