By Gene Emery
A Danish study of 695 pregnant women is raising the possibility that fish oil supplements begun in the final three months of pregnancy may reduce the risk of asthma or persistent wheezing in offspring.
The supplements brought the risk from 23.7 percent among mothers in the placebo group who took 2.4 grams of olive oil daily down to 16.9 percent in the women who got the fish oil capsules. That’s a 30.7 percent reduction during the first three years of life.
The real benefit seemed to be exclusively among the children whose mothers started out with low levels of the two key ingredients in fish oil – eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). That may make them more vulnerable to the inflammation and heightened immune system response that is a factor in asthma and related conditions.
