Studies of fish oil and health are like studies about coffee — there’s plenty of contradictory information out there.
With that in mind, here’s the latest turn: A Danish study finds that women who took fish oil supplements during pregnancy reduced the risk of asthma in their children.
“I would say that the finding that the effect was there was maybe not the surprise, because there have been indications,” says the study’s lead researcher, Dr. Hans Bisgaard, of the University of Copenhagen. “But the magnitude was very surprising to us.”
Bisgaard is a pediatrician and runs a privately funded research enterprise called the Copenhagen Prospective Studies on Asthma in Childhood. He is not the first person to study whether fish oil supplements during pregnancy can affect asthma, but his study was large and carefully designed.
