If You Have Asthma, You Need to Eat This Food
Updated: Jun. 10, 2021
New research from Greece suggests the right foods can reduce airway inflammation that leads to asthma attacks.
While most of us are aware that what we eat can help us avoid chronic health problems like heart disease and diabetes, new research suggests your diet can also improve—or worsen—asthma. In a clinical trial from by La Trobe University in Greece, researchers recruited 64 children with mild asthma. While half of the children followed their normal diets, the other half got two meals of cooked fatty fish twice a week for six months. After the trial, the researchers found that the kids who ate more fish substantially reduced their airway inflammation.
Lead researcher Maria Papamichael explains in a press release: “Fatty fish is high in omega-3 fatty acids which have anti-inflammatory properties. Our study shows eating fish just twice a week can significantly decrease lung inflammation in children with asthma.”
If your kids don’t like fish, here are 5 other ways to eat more omega-3s.
“Following a traditional Mediterranean diet that is high in plant-based foods and oily fish could be an easy, safe and effective way to reduce asthma symptoms in children,” said co-researcher and head of La Trobe’s School of Allied Health, Professor Catherine Itsiopoulos.
Learn about the other foods that are best for asthma—and the ones that make it worse.
