Formula with long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids reduces incidence of allergy in early childhood - PubMed (original) (raw)

Formula with long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids reduces incidence of allergy in early childhood

Amanda M Foiles et al. Pediatr Allergy Immunol. 2016 Mar.

Abstract

Background: Allergy has sharply increased in affluent Western countries in the last 30 years. N-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 LCPUFAs) may protect the immune system against development of allergy.

Methods: We prospectively categorized illnesses by body system in a subset of 91 children from the Kansas City cohort of the DIAMOND (DHA Intake and Measurement of Neural Development) study who had yearly medical records through 4 years of age. As infants, they were fed either a control formula without LCPUFA (n = 19) or one of three formulas with LCPUFA from docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and arachidonic acid (ARA) (n = 72).

Results: Allergic illnesses in the first year were lower in the combined LCPUFA group compared to the control. LCPUFAs significantly delayed time to first allergic illness (p = 0.04) and skin allergic illness (p = 0.03) and resulted in a trend to reduced wheeze/asthma (p = 0.1). If the mother had no allergies, LCPUFAs reduced the risk of any allergic diseases (HR = 0.24, 95% CI = 0.1, 0.56, p = 0.0.001) and skin allergic diseases (HR = 0.35, 95% CI = 0.13, 0.93, p = 0.04). In contrast, if the mother had allergies, LCPUFAs reduced wheezing/asthma (HR = 0.26, 95% CI = 0.07, 0.9, p = 0.02).

Conclusions: LCPUFA supplementation during infancy reduced the risk of skin and respiratory allergic diseases in childhood with effects influenced by maternal allergies.

Keywords: allergy; arachidonic acid; childhood; docosahexaenoic acid; infant formula; long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids; respiratory; skin.

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1

Kaplan-Meier Survival Curves for all allergic illnesses by type of formula. The x-axis is event-free time (in months) from birth to four years. The y-axis is the probability of remaining illness-free to time X. The two curves represent survival for LCPUFA compared to controls for all allergic illness. Children supplemented with LCPUFA as infants had less allergic illness in the first 12 months (p=0.033) and longer illness-free time (p = 0.04) compared to the control.

Figure 2

Figure 2

Kaplan-Meier Survival Curves for skin allergic illnesses by type of formula and history of maternal allergy. The _x_-axis is event-free time (in months) from birth up to four years. The _y_-axis is the probability of remaining illness-free to time x. The four curves represent survival for LCPUFA with history of maternal allergy (solid, n = 25), LCPUFA with no history (dot-dash, n = 28), control with history (short dash, n = 9) and control with no history (long dash, n = 8). If mother reported no allergy, the LCPUFA group had less risk of skin allergy than the control group (χ2 = 10.7, p = 0.001) whereas LCPUFA and control groups did not differ if mother reported allergy (χ2 = 0.01, p = 0.9).

Figure 3

Figure 3

Kaplan-Meier Survival Curves for wheezing/asthma by type of formula and history of maternal allergy. The _x_-axis is event-free time (in months) from birth up to four years. The _y_-axis is the probability of remaining illness-free to time x. The four curves represent survival for LCPUFA with history of maternal allergy (solid, n = 25), LCPUFA with no history (dot-dash, n = 28), control with history (short dash, n = 9) and control with no history (long dash, n = 8). If mother reported allergy, the LCPUFA group had less risk of wheezing/asthma than the control group (χ2 = 5.3, p = 0.02) whereas LCPUFA and control groups did not differ if mother reported no history of allergy (χ2 = 0.14, p = 0.8).

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