Maternal antioxidant intake in pregnancy and wheezing illnesses in children at 2 y of age.
BACKGROUND
Low intakes of dietary antioxidants may contribute to increases in asthma and allergy.


OBJECTIVE
We investigated the association of maternal total intakes (foods + supplements) of 10 antioxidant nutrients during pregnancy with wheezing and eczema in 2-y-old children.


METHODS
Subjects were 1290 mother-child pairs in an ongoing cohort study. Maternal dietary and supplement intakes were assessed by using a validated food-frequency questionnaire administered in the first and second trimesters. Antioxidant nutrient intakes were calculated, and the mean for each nutrient was considered to be the exposure during pregnancy. The outcomes of interest were any wheezing by the child during either the first or second year of life, recurrent wheezing in both years, and eczema in either the first or second year.


RESULTS
No association was observed between maternal total intake of any antioxidant nutrient and eczema. In multivariate logistic regression models, the highest quartile compared with the lowest quartile of maternal total intakes of vitamin E [odds ratio (OR): 0.70; 95% CI: 0.48, 1.03] and zinc (OR: 0.59; 95% CI: 0.41, 0.88) was inversely associated with any wheezing at 2 y of age (P for trend = 0.06 and 0.01 over quartiles of intake for vitamin E and zinc, respectively). Similar results were obtained for recurrent wheezing at 2 y of age with vitamin E (OR: 0.49; 95% CI: 0.27, 0.90) and zinc (OR: 0.49; 95% CI: 0.27, 0.87) (P for trend = 0.05 and 0.06 over quartiles of intake for vitamin E and zinc, respectively).


CONCLUSIONS
Our results suggest that higher maternal total intakes of antioxidants during pregnancy may decrease the risks for wheezing illnesses in early childhood.
Litonjua
Augusto A
AA
Channing Laboratory, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA. augusto.litonjua@channing.harvard.edu
Rifas-Shiman
Sheryl L
SL
Ly
Ngoc P
NP
Tantisira
Kelan G
KG
Rich-Edwards
Janet W
JW
Camargo
Carlos A
CA
Weiss
Scott T
ST
Gillman
Matthew W
MW
Gold
Diane R
DR
D000328:Adult; D000975:Antioxidants / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015331:Cohort Studies; D019587:Dietary Supplements; D004485:Eczema / Q000517:prevention & control*; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D009035:Mothers; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D016017:Odds Ratio; D011247:Pregnancy; D011261:Pregnancy Trimester, First; D011262:Pregnancy Trimester, Second; D039401:Prenatal Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D012135:Respiratory Sounds; D018570:Risk Assessment; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
D000975:Antioxidants