Fight Asthma with These Diet and Eating Tips

According to the latest information, asthma with its coughing and wheezing, is up 60% from about 25 years ago. Approximately 23 million Americans now have asthma with the figures continuing to climb. Experts claim that what you eat helps fight asthma and coupled with diet will go a long way toward curing or at least reducing asthma's inflammation.

Some of the research-based tips that were suggested:

First of all, eat a Mediterranean-type diet. Overall, this is a good diet not only for fighting asthma but to lose weight and get healthier. The main ingredients of this diet are lots of of fruits and vegetables, whole grains and legumes, fish instead of meat, cooking with olive oil as well as staying away from white flour products and sugar. A new study finds that by eating a Mediterranean Diet the risk of asthma was cut by 78% after adjusting for gender, age, education, etc. Kids, who eat a Mediterranean diet, especially lots of oranges, apples, tomatoes and grapes, have less wheezing, allergic rhinitis and asthma. Children of mothers who followed a high-quality Mediterranean diet were 80 percent less likely to have persistent wheezing, the most common symptom of childhood asthma, the study found. They were also 45 percent less likely to develop allergies. The research, which was published in the journal Thorax, was carried out by teams from the Royal Brompton Hospital, in London; the University of Crete; Venezelio General Hospital in Crete and the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology, in Barcelona. The Faculty of Nutrition and Food Sciences, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal, and Department of Immunoallergology, Hospital of S. João, Porto, Portugal.s. reported similar findings.

If you are overweight or obese you should lose weight because your odds of developing asthma jump 50%, according to a recent review of 330,000 subjects by researchers at Denver's National Jewish Health Center. They estimate that being overweight or obese accounts for at least 250,000 new cases of adult asthma every year. Although it's a fact that children that are overweight increases the chances for asthma no figures were given.

Eat the good fats and avoid the bad ones. Omega-3 oil, found in certain kinds of fish (sardines, salmon, tuna) is a potent anti-inflammatory. A study by Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School and reported in Nature Immunology found that adults who ate fish with high levels of omega-3 fatty acids reduced asthmatic symptoms. These fatty acids are found in cold-water fish such as salmon, mackerel and anchovies. Adults who never ate fish as children, were more apt to develop asthma and at an earlier age. An Indiana University study shows that high doses of fish oil of at least 5 g daily helped prevent exercise-induced asthma symptoms. Stay clear of omega-6polyunsaturated fats (in corn, soybean, regular safflower and sunflower oils, and in meat and many processed foods) as much as possible, as they induce inflammation and promote asthma according to studies by the University of Maryland Medical Center.

Low sodium intake won't help. Up until recently it was thought that a low sodium diet would help control asthma. Recently in a British study, published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, researchers compared the effects of a low-sodium vs. normal-sodium diet on asthma control in nearly 200 adults with asthma for six weeks. The study showed that subjects who restricted sodium intake for six weeks had just as many asthma symptoms as those on normal diets. It still might be a good idea to restrict your sodium intake though.

Pregnant women need to watch what they eat. Dutch research, reported in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine shows that pregnant women who eat nuts or nut products like peanut butter every day up their children's odds of developing asthma by nearly 50%.