antioxidant vitamins / asthma risk in children

Doe

>Subject: antioxidant vitamins / asthma risk in children
>From: ironjustice@aol.comdoe (doe)
>Date: 2/15/2004 12:30 PM Mountain Standard Time
>Message-id: <20040215143058.13026.00002222@mb-m02.aol.com>
>
>Am J Epidemiol. 2004 Feb 15;159(4):351-7. Related Articles, Links
>
>
>Serum vitamin levels and the risk of asthma in children.
>
>Harik-Khan RI, Muller DC, Wise RA.
>
>Clinical Research Branch, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health,
>Baltimore, MD.
>
>Dietary intake, especially of antioxidant vitamins A, C, E, and the carotenoids, has been linked
>with the presence and severity of asthma. From the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination
>Survey (NHANES III), conducted in the United States between 1988 and 1994, the authors selected
>4,093 children (aged 6-17 years) for whom relevant medical, socioeconomic, and anthropometric data
>were complete. The children were 50.6% female, and 9.7% reported a diagnosis of asthma. Bivariate
>analyses showed that asthma diagnosis was associated with lower levels of serum vitamin C, alpha-
>carotene, beta-carotene, and beta-cryptoxanthin. However, antioxidant levels may be surrogate
>markers for socioeconomic variables such as race, poverty, tobacco exposure, or general nutritional
>status. In logistic models that included age, body mass index, socioeconomic variables, antioxidant
>levels, parental asthma, and household smoking, the only antioxidants significantly associated with
>asthma were vitamin C (odds ratio = 0.72 per mg/dl, 95% confidence interval = 0.55, 0.95) and alpha-
>carotene (odds ratio = 0.95 per micro g/dl, 95% confidence interval
>=
>.90, 0.99). The odds ratio for asthma in the highest quintile of serum vitamin C relative to the
>lowest was 0.65 (p < 0.05), whereas it was 0.74 for alpha-carotene (p = 0.066). The authors
>concluded that low vitamin C and alpha-carotene intakes are associated with asthma risk in
>children.
>
>PMID: 14769638 [PubMed - in process]
>
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Curr Allergy Asthma Rep. 2004 Mar;4(2):116-22. Related Articles, Links

Oxidative stress in the pathogenesis of asthma.

Bowler RP.

National Jewish Medical and Research Center, K736a, 1400 Jackson Street, Denver, CO, 80206, USA.
BowlerR@njc.org

Asthma affects 5% to 10% of the population of the United States. In asthmatics, oxidative stress
occurs not only as a result of inflammation but also from environmental exposure to air pollution.
The specific localization of antioxidants in the lung and the adaptive changes during asthma
underscore the importance of oxidative stress, and therapeutic interventions that decrease exposure
to environmental reactive oxygen species or augment endogenous antioxidant defenses might be
beneficial as adjunctive therapies in asthmatic patients.

PMID: 14769260 [PubMed - in process]

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