Higher-quality diet may reduce wheezing in adolescents with environmental smoke exposure

March 28, 2022

2 min read

ADD TOPIC TO EMAIL ALERTS

Receive an email when new articles are posted on

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on .

”
data-action=”subscribe”>
Subscribe

We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact [email protected].

Back to Healio

Consumption of a higher-quality diet was associated with lower odds of wheezing among adolescents with substantial environmental tobacco smoke exposure, according to data published in Annals of the American Thoracic Society.

“Notably, over 9 million adolescents in the U.S. were exposed to secondhand or environmental tobacco smoke from 2013 to 2014, highlighting an important public health concern,” Jing Gennie Wang, MD, physician in the division of pulmonary, critical care medicine and sleep medicine at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, and colleagues wrote. “Among adolescents, environmental tobacco smoke exposure is associated with a higher risk of respiratory symptoms and airways disease, reduced lung function and increased health care utilization. However, the role of diet in respiratory health among youths with environmental tobacco smoke exposure is unknown.”

Source: Adobe Stock.

The researchers conducted a cross-sectional study that included 7,026 nonsmoking adolescents (median age, 13.4 years; 50.8% boys) from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2003-2012. Researchers assessed diet quality using the Healthy Eating Index 2010 score and categorized the adolescents into quintiles ranging from poorest diet to healthiest diet. Researchers measured environmental tobacco exposure using serum cotinine dichotomized as high (> 2.99 ng/ml) or low ( 2.99 ng/mL).

The primary outcome was the presence of wheezing and cough symptoms in the past year.

Researchers observed a significant interaction between diet quality and serum cotinine on wheezing (P = .011). Adolescents with high serum cotinine and consumption of the healthiest diet had lower odds of wheezing compared with adolescents with poorer diets (OR = 0.1; 95% CI, 0.02-0.1) in models stratified by serum cotinine. The researchers reported no significant differences in any respiratory symptoms among adolescents with low serum cotinine between those who consumed the highest-quality diet compared with the lowest-quality diet.

In a subgroup of 3,166 adolescents with spirometry data, the researchers reported a trend toward better lung function as diet quality improved, but this was not significant.

Researchers observed no significant associations between diet quality and respiratory symptoms and no effect modification by environmental tobacco smoke exposure on the relationship between diet quality and lung function.

“To our knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the intersection between diet quality and environmental tobacco smoking exposure on respiratory outcomes in adolescents, and emphasizes the need for an exposomic approach to better understand the determinants of respiratory health among vulnerable populations,” the researchers wrote.

The researchers noted several limitations of the current study, including its cross-sectional design and exclusion of adolescents with recent nicotine use and smoking history.

“Population-level, longitudinal studies dedicated to understanding the role of diet in airways disorders among environmentally exposed adolescents are warranted,” the researchers wrote.