Prenatal, early life fructose intake associated with asthma

9 February 2018 - MedicalXpress

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Lakiea S. Wright, M.D., from Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and colleagues used food frequency questionnaires to examine maternal pregnancy and child intake of sugar-sweetened beverages and total fructose in 1,068 mother-child pairs. The correlations of quartiles of maternal and child sugar-sweetened beverage, juice, and total fructose intake were assessed with child current asthma in mid-childhood (median age, 7.7 years).

Comparing quartile four with quartile one, the researchers found that increased odds of mid-childhood current asthma were associated with higher maternal pregnancy intake of sugar-sweetened beverages (odds ratio, 1.70 [95 percent confidence interval, 1.08 to 2.67]) and total fructose (odds ratio, 1.58 [95 percent confidence interval, 0.98 to 2.53]). Adjustments were made for prepregnancy body mass index and other covariates. There was a correlation between higher early childhood fructose intake with mid-childhood current asthma in models adjusted for maternal sugar-sweetened beverages (odds ratio, 1.79 [95 percent confidence interval, 1.07 to 2.97]) and after also adjusting for mid-childhood body mass index z-score (odds ratio, 1.77 [95 percent confidence interval, 1.06 to 2.95]).

"Higher sugar-sweetened beverage and fructose intake during pregnancy and in early childhood was associated with childhood asthma development independent of adiposity," the authors write.