Researchers from Queen Silvia Children’s Hospital at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, found that children who consumed fish before nine months of age have a lower risk of suffering from pre-school wheeze. This may change, however, if they were treated with broad spectrum antibiotics in the first week of life or if their mother ingested paracetamol while pregnant.
The wels catfish (Silurus glanis). Image credit: Dieter Florian / CC BY-SA 3.0 DE.
Scientists investigated a sample of 4,171 families that were chosen randomly. The participants answered questions when their child was 6 months, 12 months and 4.5 years of age. The team sought to discover the risk factors for preschool wheeze, specifically in association with fish consumption and early exposure to antibiotics.
‘Recurrent wheeze is a very common clinical problem in preschool children and there is a need for better medical treatment and improved understanding of the underlying mechanisms,’ explains Dr Emma Goksor, co-author of the study. ‘The aim of our study was to identify both important risk factors and protective factors for the disease. Our demographic analysis suggests that the responses we received were largely representative of the population as a whole and we believe our findings provide useful information on three important factors involved in pre-school wheeze.’
The researchers assessed children who had at least three episodes of wheezing in the last year, against children who did not wheeze. Overall, 20% of the children reported one or more episodes of wheezing, and 5% reported recurrent wheeze over the last year. Around 75% of these were treated for asthma and more than 50% reported doctor-diagnosed asthma. With respect to fish consumption, children who ate fish before nine months had a 50% lower chance of suffering from recurrent wheeze at 4.5 years. White fish tops the list, followed by salmon and flat fish.
According to the researchers, being treated with broad-spectrum antibiotics in the first week was linked to a twofold increase in the risk of recurrent wheeze at 4.5 years. As regards use of paracetamol, the researchers found 28.4% of the mothers had ingested the medication while pregnant. The incidence of prenatal paracetamol exposure in the wheeze group using asthma medication was 12.4%, taking paracetamol during pregnancy raised the risk by 60%.
‘Our findings clearly show that while fish has a protective effect against developing pre-school wheeze, children who had antibiotics in the first week of life and whose mothers took paracetamol during pregnancy faced an increased risk, particularly of multiple-trigger wheeze’, says Dr. Goksor.
