More newborns wanted
for University of Western Australia fish oil trial
Four in ten babies in Australia will develop asthma
or allergies due to a dramatic incidence in these diseases over the
last 20 to 30 years and researchers at The University of Western Australia
are hoping a safe, simple, natural dietary supplement - fish oil - may
hold the key to prevention.
Professor Susan Prescott, head of the research group
in UWA's School of Paediatrics and Child Health, and research fellow
Dr Jan Dunstan are calling for pregnant women with a family history
of allergy to sign up their unborn babies for the study.
More than 340 women are enrolled and the researchers
are seeking another 60.
A previous study found that giving pregnant women
fish oil supplementation resulted in newborns with reduced immune responses
to allergens such as house dust mites, cats and eggs.
Professor Prescott and Dr Dunstan believe one reason
for the prevalence of asthma and allergies is the decline in dietary
n-3 anti-inflammatory polyunsaturated fats (PUFA) such as fish oil in
Western diets with a corresponding increasing in n-6 PUFA fatty acids.
They hope to study the effects of fish oil supplementation
on newborns at regular intervals until the children are five years old,
with a control group being administered an identical-tasting olive-oil
placebo.
"The supplements will be supplied as a capsule
containing 650mg fish oil, which will be given to the baby by squirting
it into their mouth or on a teaspoon and this will not interfere with
the mother's choice to breast feed," Professor Prescott said. "The
fishy taste will be disguised with vanilla flavouring.
"The bigger population to be recruited for this
study will allow us to determine if increasing dietary n-3 PUFA is a
way of reducing the chance of allergy in families where there is a high
genetic risk.
"Strategies such as this that reduce the risk
or the severity of disease expression could have enormous impact in
a global context at relatively little cost."
Please view further Volunteer
Information (180kb pdf) and Timeline
(190kb pdf).
For information about the trial call: 08 9340 8834
or visit: www.paediatrics.uwa.edu.au/go/cair
Release Date: 1st April 2008
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