Why don't we give chest patients dietary advice?
Year: 2001
Type: review
Abstract: Dietary vitamin E, IgE concentrations, and atopy
A Fogarty, S Lewis, S Weiss, J Britton
Vitamin E inhibits IgE responses to allergic stimuli in animals. We investigated the relation between dietary vitamin E intake and serum IgE concentrations and atopy, measured as allergen skin sensitisation, in a random sample of 2633 adults. Higher concentrations of vitamin E intake were associated with lower IgE concentrations and a lower frequency of allergen sensitisation. These findings may explain the beneficial effect of dietary vitamin E on the incidence of asthma. ( Lancet 2000;356:1573–4)
The introductory article by Fogarty and colleagues showed what at first glance might be thought an implausible association.1 Is it likely that what we eat as adults can have any bearing on what is widely regarded as a genetically determined propensity to allergic disease? The answer is yes. In this paper we shall review the now quite extensive literature on associations between diet and obstructive airway diseases and point to intriguing new evidence that an unbalanced diet may be an important determinant of allergic disease. From this it follows that we should, as chest physicians, pay more attention to what our patients eat.
There is good evidence that oxidant/antioxidant imbalance is important in the pathogenesis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD); cigarette smoke contains oxidants and free radicals that, by generating oxygen radicals, damage cellular lipids, proteins and nucleic acids. The neutrophils and macrophages associated with the COPD inflammatory response also release oxygen radicals.2 These radicals have been implicated in the pathogenesis of COPD because of their ability to induce oxidative inactivation of antiproteinases, tissue damage, sequestration of neutrophils, and the generation of inflammatory mediators. However, other factors must influence the development of COPD because individuals vary in their susceptibility to the effects of cigarette smoke; only a proportion …
Source: PubMed
Authors: G Devereux, A Seaton
Institution: University of Aberdeen
Language: English
Subfield: Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2168264440