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TOPLINE:

Children who consumed 30% or more of total energy from ultraprocessed foods (UPFs) had a nearly fourfold higher risk of developing asthma during the early school years than peers who consumed less; no significant association was observed between the consumption of UPFs and the risk for other allergic diseases.

METHODOLOGY:

• Researchers sought to determine whether high childhood intake of UPFs increased the risk of developing asthma and other allergic diseases later in life.
• They analyzed data on 691 children (mean age, 4.86 years; 52.5% girls) from the SENDO cohort whose intake of UPFs was grouped into tertiles. The lowest tertile (T1) comprised children who consumed less than 30% of total energy from UPFs and was compared with a combined category of the highest intake tertiles (T2+T3; 30% or more of total energy from UPFs).
• Dietary data were collected using a validated food frequency questionnaire at baseline, and children were followed up for a mean duration of 3.4 years.
• Incidences of asthma and allergic diseases including allergic asthma, atopic dermatitis, aeroallergen sensitization, food allergy, and atopy were confirmed via parental responses to standardized questionnaires.

TAKEAWAY:

• The adjusted risk for asthma across tertiles of UPF consumption showed a significant linear trend: 2.6% in T1, 9.9% in T2, and 7.6% in T3 (P for trend = .03).
• Children in the combined highest tertiles (T2+T3) had a nearly fourfold higher risk of developing asthma than those in the lowest tertile (adjusted hazard ratio, 3.76; P = .02).
• No significant association was observed between UPF consumption and the risk for allergic asthma, aeroallergen sensitization, atopic dermatitis, food allergy, or atopy.

IN PRACTICE:

“Our findings suggest that UPF consumption could represent a particularly potent modifiable risk factor for childhood asthma in specific populations or contexts,” the authors wrote.

SOURCE:

N. Martín-Calvo, MD, PhD, with the Navarra Institute for Health Research, Pamplona, Spain, was the corresponding author of the study, which was published online on May 5 in Allergy.

LIMITATIONS:

The study relied on a food frequency questionnaire that was not specifically designed to determine the consumption of UPFs, and the assessment of outcomes based on parental report and clinical assessment without objective criteria for defining allergic asthma, food allergy, or atopy could have led to misclassification bias. Additionally, the sample was relatively homogeneous and skewed toward highly educated families, and the number of incident cases was modest, resulting in wide CIs (low precision).

DISCLOSURES:

The SENDO project was supported by a scholarship from the Mapfre Foundation. The authors declared having no conflicts of interest.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.