Eating apples while pregnant may give a new meaning to an apple a day keeping the doctor away, according to a study published in Thorax online on Friday.
Compelling new research concluded that mothers who ate apples during pregnancy may protect their children from developing asthma later in life.
This unique longitudinal study tracked dietary intake by nearly 2,000 pregnant women, then examined the effects of the maternal diet on airway development in more than 1,200 of their children five years later.
Among a wide variety of foods consumed and recorded by the pregnant women, the researchers concluded that the children of mothers who ate apples had a significantly reduced risk for the development of asthma and childhood wheezing.
This study focused on medical evaluations for asthma and related symptoms (wheezing, for example) when the children were five years old. As a result of the evaluations cited in this research, other than apples, there were no consistent associations found between prenatal consumption of a range of healthful foods and asthma in the 1,253 children evaluated.
Children of mothers who ate apples during pregnancy were much less likely to exhibit symptoms of asthma (including wheezing), said the researchers from institutions in The Netherlands and Scotland.
These same researchers previously reported positive associations between maternal consumption of vitamins A, E, D and zinc with reduced risk of asthma, wheeze and eczema in children.
The only other positive association found between prenatal food intake and risk reduction in children was with fish, for which the researchers found that children of mothers who ate fish had a lowered incidence of doctor-confirmed eczema.
"The present study suggests beneficial associations between maternal apple intake during pregnancy and wheeze and asthma at age five," according to the researchers.
They added that their findings "suggest an apple specific effect, possibly because of its phytochemical content, such as flavonoids."
The research paper cited other related studies on apples, including those which found that "intake of apples as a significant source of flavonoids and other polyphenols has been beneficially associated with asthma, bronchial hypersensitivity and lung function in adults."
