Friday, August 08, 2008

Prenatal Mediterranean Diet Cuts Risk of Asthma, Allergies in Children

At the very least, the Mediterranean diet is delicous...

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(NaturalNews) Women who eat a Mediterranean diet while pregnant appear to reduce their children's risk of developing allergies and asthma, while those who eat more red meat appear to increase it, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Crete, Greece, and published in the journal Thorax...

Prior studies by the same researchers have shown that children who eat a Mediterranean diet are less likely to develop allergies and asthma than their peers who eat a more Western diet. But while the protective benefits of a Mediterranean diet appear to be less significant by six years of age, the effects of the maternal diet are still strong.

read more here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would like to question the validity of this study. What other diets were explored? Why Mediterranean and Western? Western is a big area don't you think? My daughter has allergies, no-one knows why, she is the only one of three. I was pregnant in Japan and as a result was not eating a 'Western' diet, didn't eat nuts or dairy throughout the pregnancy and yet she still has allergies. Diet as the cause for allergies along with breastfeeding and not breastfeeding have been thrown around for years. Until there is firm scientific evidence we won't know. Why can't we stop guessing?

GreenFertility said...

Thanks for your comment about your experience. I personally think science itself is a lot of guessing. It is also hard to ethically conduct experiments on pregnant women.

That said, the fact that we know olive oil contains anti inflammatory chemicals suggests why wouldn't it help asthma, and it wouldn't hurt...