Overview of Relationship of Allergic Asthma with Diet and Food Intake

Allergic asthma is the most common acute inflammatory airway disorder and their incidence population has exploded in the last years, being estimated that over 300 million people worldwide have the condition. Here, we present a brief overview of relationship of allergic asthma with diet and food intake. Several studies have shown that most asthma cases are due to an allergic immune response to environmental allergens. Diet affects strongly the devel-opment of asthma because the systemic inflammatory mediators are affected by a high fat diet and obesity. Thus, obesity has effect on airway function and trigger inflammation path-ways. There are also strong associations between asthma and dietary antioxidants, such as vitamins, and they may protect the respiratory system from inflammation and allergic reac-tions. An increased prevalence of food allergy has been also observed in the last years and this problem could be a major risk factor for severe asthma. According to the findings of many researchers, specific diets could help controlling asthma, therefore therapeutic strate-gies for allergic asthma suggest the modification of diet, which could include antioxidant-rich foods, the avoidance of allergic food, low saturated fat intake and maintenance of weight in the healthy range.