Omega 3 Fish Oil and Childrend
Posted by Michael Byrd on Jun 29 2007 | Tagged as: Omega 3
In the past 25 years, childhood asthma has more than doubled where now nine million children are affected. Asthma is responsible for almost 13 million missed school days and hundreds of thousands of emergency hospital visits.
But there’s good news for all these children.
A recent study at the University of Sydney in Australia found eating omega-3 rich salmon or other fatty fish such as sardines, herring or tongol tuna two or three times a week reduces the risk of childhood asthma by as much as four times. (Medical Journal of Australia, Vol. 164: 137-40)
That’s huge difference!
Asthma triggers are not the same for each child. Some are allergic to specific foods – eggs, wheat, milk, soy and nuts, while others are affected by airborne dust particles, mold and pollen. Tobacco smoke, certain weather conditions and exercise are also common triggers.
But what all these triggers have in common is that they cause an increase in inflammation that brings on the coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath associated with asthma.
And that’s why eating fatty fish comes to the rescue. Omega 3 fish oil fatty acids DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) are nature’s most potent and safest anti-inflammatory agents.
Over the last thirty years, fish oil has been found in thousands of studies all over the world to be highly effective at relieving the inflammation of arthritis, bursitis, colitis and migraines, as well such respiratory conditions as emphysema, cystic fibrosis and asthma.
The University of Sydney study wasn’t only childhood asthma research in the news recently. Another research team from the University of Montana recently published a report showing that supplementing children’s diets with fish oil omega 3 DHA and EPA fatty acids significantly reduced the severity of asthma symptoms in over 40% of their patients. (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 65: 1011-17)
These are pretty amazing results. All your child has to do is to eat salmon or sardines two or three times a week and/or take a good quality fish oil supplement and they might be able to get asthma relief without medication.
Wouldn’t it be great if they didn’t miss so much school and didn’t have to be rushed to the emergency room as often? Sounds pretty good, don’t you think?
