Fast Food Linked to Asthma and Allergies in Kids

This crossed my desk a little over a week ago. From Time Magazine's Health and Family website comes word of a study that links fast-food consumption to allergies and asthma.

European researchers analyzing data from participants in the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood have found that eating fast food meals at least three times a week is linked to a 39% increased risk of severe asthma in teenagers and a 27% increased risk among children between ages six and seven.

From the article: “This is the largest study to date on allergies in people around the world, and the findings are remarkably consistent when it comes to looking at specific regions of the world and within affluence and sex,” says study author Hywel Williams, a professor at the Centre for Evidence Based Dermatology at the University of Nottingham. “If true, our findings have big public health implications given that these types of allergies are on the rise and fast food is so popular.”

Oddly enough, they also found that eating fruit had the opposite effect.