New study shows importance of pregnant women maintaining recommended daily intake of vitamin E.

Low vitamin E levels in pregnancy linked to asthma in children.

Researchers at the University of Aberdeen studied 2,000 pregnant women and their children over a 5 year period. They found that those women with the lowest levels of vitamin E during the first 16 weeks of their pregnancy had children who were more than 5 times more likely to have asthma that children born to mothers who had the highest levels of vitamin E.

The researchers believe that vitamin E may have a beneficial effect on the unborn child's lung and airway development.

In other related work the researchers also found that newborn babies of mothers with low vitamin E levels had more response to grass pollen and dust mites. By the age of two they were also more likely to have eczema than other two year olds.

Recommendations from this research are to ensure that you have a balanced, healthy diet and that you should make sure that you take the recommended daily intake of all vitamins and other important nutrients.

For more information, the research was published by the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine and supported by Asthma UK
This content was created on Sat 2 September 2006

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