Eating Fish in Early Childhood Even Just Once a Week Reduces Risk of Disease – SciTechDaily

By Steinar Brandslet, Norwegian University of Science and TechnologyOctober 7, 2019

It seems that eating all types of fish provides a health benefit, not just fatty fish.

Children should be introduced to fish or cod liver oil early in life, from when they are about a year old. Thats because children who consume fish early on show significantly reduced occurrences of eczema, wheezing and asthma at age six, as reported by their parents.

The reduction ranges from 28 to 40 percent fewer occurrences for the various conditions.

We compared children who ate fish at least once a week until they were two years old with children who consumed less fish than that, says associate professor and first author Torbjrn ien in NTNUs Department of Public Health and Nursing.

Researchers from St. Olavs hospital and NTNU conducted the study, which was published in MDPI on August 21, 2019.

The baseline for the study were figures from the pediatric allergy survey Prevention of Allergy among Children in Trondheim that started in 2000. Data from more than 4 000 families contributed to these new analyses, which investigated the relationship between the mothers or childs fish intake and the childs development of eczema, asthma and hay fever.

All of these health conditions have increased sharply in Norway since the 1950s. They have been linked to various changes in our lifestyle, including that the population as a whole is eating less fish.

It seems that eating all types of fish provides a health benefit, not just fatty fish, says Melanie Rae Simpson, the senior author and a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Public Health and Nursing.

The authors have also taken into account other factors that may be involved, such as socio-economic status.

One conclusion from the study is that we should increase childrens fish intake in the first year of life to have a preventive effect against eczema and asthma.

It could be that children from some social groups such as having parents with higher education or high incomes have health advantages regardless, due to multiple factors.

Perhaps these children simply have more fish in their diets, and the health benefits arent due exclusively to their fish intake, but to several other influencing factors as well. The research team did what they could to account for these possible factors.

In line with previous meta-analyses of several studies, we found that consuming fish at the age of one year seems to reduce the risk of eczema, asthma and wheezing at the age of six. This is more significant than the mothers intake of fish and cod liver oil during pregnancy and breastfeeding or the childs intake at two years, which do not appear to have the same protective effect, says ien.

One conclusion from the study is that we should increase childrens fish intake in the first year of life to have a preventive effect against eczema and asthma.

Reference: Fish Consumption at One Year of Age Reduces the Risk of Eczema, Asthma and Wheeze at Six Years of Age by Torbjrn ien, Astrid Schjelvaag, Ola Storr, Roar Johnsen and Melanie Rae Simpson, 21 August 2019, MDPI.DOI: 10.3390/nu11091969

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Eating Fish in Early Childhood Even Just Once a Week Reduces Risk of Disease - SciTechDaily