Eating junk food could increase the severity of asthma and eczema in youngsters, a study suggests.
Teenagers have a 39% increased risk of severe asthma if they eat more than three helpings of burgers, chips and pizza each week – while children have 27% increased risk, say researchers.
Children and teenagers consuming three or more portions of fast food have an increased risk of severe eczema and severe rhinitis – a condition characterised by a runny or blocked nose and itchy and watery eyes.
The findings, from the International Study Of Asthma And Allergies In Childhood and published in the respiratory journal Thorax, have prompted the authors to suggest a fast-food diet may be contributing to the rise in the conditions.
The researchers said if the link was proved to be causal it would have major implications on public health.
They examined data on 319,000 13 and 14-year-olds from 51 countries and 181,000 six and seven-year-olds from 31 countries.
The teenagers and parents of the younger children were questioned on symptoms of asthma, rhinoconjunctivitis and eczema and their weekly diet.
Researchers also found eating fruit could have a protective effect on the youngsters. Consuming three or more portions a week was linked to a reduction in symptom severity of 11%-14% among teenagers and children, respectively.
Malayka Rahman, of Asthma UK, said: "We advise people with asthma to eat a healthy, balanced diet, including five portions of fruit or vegetables every day, fish more than twice a week, and pulses more than once a week."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article