Antioxidant-rich Diet Helps to Improve Asthma

Asthma is a chronic respiratory condition, with some scientific evidence suggesting that antioxidants may improve disease symptoms. Lisa G Wood, from the University of Newcastle (Australia), and colleagues enrolled 137 asthmatic adults, who were randomly assigned to consume either an antioxidant-rich (five servings of vegetables and, two servings of fruit, per day) or an antioxidant-poor diet (two vegetable servings, one fruit serving, per day) for 14 days. After the initial 14-day intervention, the high-antioxidant diet group was given additional placebo up to week 14, while the low-antioxidant group was given a daily lycopene-rich tomato extract supplement. The researchers observed that subjects in the low-antioxidant group have lower lung function in a shorter time for asthma exacerbation, as compared to the subjects in the high-antioxidant group. Additionally, people in the low-antioxidant group were 2.3 times more likely to have their asthma symptoms exacerbate. Writing that: “Modifying the dietary intake of carotenoids alters clinical asthma outcomes,” the study authors conclude that: “improvements were evident only after increased fruit and vegetable intake, which suggests that whole-food interventions are most effective.”