Dust Mites, Diet Don’t Affect Asthma

Reducing house dust mite allergens or making diet changes does not prevent the onset of asthma or eczema in high-risk children, say Australian researchers.

A team of researchers from Woolcock Institute of Medical Research, the Cooperative Research Centre for Asthma, the Children’s Hospital at Westmead and the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney recruited 600 newborn children with a family history of asthma in Sydney.

Participants were tracked from their birth to the age of 5 in a bid to explore the role of early exposure to environmental factors in the development of asthma.

Parents testing house dust mite avoidance were instructed to use both physical and chemical methods to reduce their child’s exposure to the allergens, including changes to bedding materials and the addition of a benzyl benzoate-containing solution to the wash at regular intervals.

Another group of parents were given cooking oils and margarine high in omega-3 fatty acids to use in food preparation and food oil capsules were added to the child’s formula or to solid foods from the age of 6 months.

Neither the allergen avoidance, not the diet changes, resulted in a reduction in the rate of asthma, wheeze or atopy, according to the July issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.