Danish Study Links Fish Oil During Pregnancy With Reduced Asthma Risk In Kids [STUDY]

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A Danish study has discovered that women who took fish oil supplements during pregnancy give birth to children with reduced risk of asthma.

"I would say that the finding that the effect was there was maybe not the surprise, because there have been indications," says Dr. Hans Bisgaard, the study's lead researcher says. "But the magnitude was very surprising to us."

The researchers at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark who engaged in the study gave 2.4 grams of fish oil capsules or olive oil capsules to more than 700 pregnant women who were already in the third trimester of their pregnancy.

The health of the babies was monitored for at least five years after birth. The researchers found that 17 percent of the children in the fish oil group and 24 in the olive oil group had developed persistent wheezing or asthma at the age of 5, according to CBSLocal.

The result shows up to 30 percent reduction in cases of asthma or wheezing and there were also fewer cases of pneumonia, bronchitis and other related diseases in the fish oil group.

However, almost all of the reduced risk occurred among babies born to women who initially had the lowest blood levels of lipids found in fish at the start of the study, Bisgaard says.

He thus suggests that a simple blood test during pregnancy could identify the women who will benefit most from supplements. He described the strategy as "precision prevention," because it targets women who are likely to see the biggest benefit and distinguishes them from other who not the supplement at all.

Bisgaard suspects that more of the United States population would fall in the group who would benefit most from fish oil during pregnancy as Americans consume less fish than Danes. However, the study does not prove that it will be generally helpful, and the findings of other researches contradict this conclusion, according to NPR.

Dr. Ellen Mozurkewich, an OB-GYN at the University of New Mexico, noted that she agrees with that go-slow approach. She has also studied the relationship between fish oil and asthma and says she finds the Danish results intriguing.

However, Mozurkewich stated that she would not recommend the supplements for her patients, as several studies have shown that women who consume fish oil supplements during pregnancy tend to have larger babies, which might be detrimental to the moms.

She said it would be great to run a big study, at multiple universities, to figure out whether fish oil really would prevent asthma in a diverse population.

Although, Bisgaard agrees that his careful exploration of the topic is not the final answer, he said the problem is that it is very difficult to get funding for these kinds of studies.

The study was funded for by the Lundbeck Foundation of Denmark and the Danish Ministry of Health and other groups. The researchers published their findings in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.