News background: The 2011 Annual Congress of the European Respiratory Society (ERS) was held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, from September 24th to 28th. The research team of Professor Ekaterina Maslova from the Harvard School of Public Health published the results of a study of 70,000 pregnant women and found that mothers who drank low-fat yogurt during pregnancy increased the risk of postpartum asthma in their children.
Glossary: Low-fat milk is a dairy product made by defatting raw milk to reduce the fat content. The fat content of whole milk is about 3%, while the fat content of low-fat milk is 0.5% to 2%.
Interviewed expert: Ekaterina Maslova, professor at Harvard School of Public Health, mainly engaged in nutritional epidemiology research.
The dairy section in the supermarket has a variety of milk and yogurt. If you choose carefully, you will also find some packages with the words \”low-fat\” and \”skim\” on them. But compared to full-fat yogurt, low-fat and non-fat yogurts have fewer flavors and are bought by younger consumers. When asked why, most people choose low-fat yogurt because it has low fat content and can avoid obesity.
So for pregnant women who are pursuing comprehensive nutrition, where should they start when faced with a wide variety of yogurts?
New findings from the Harvard School of Public Health may discourage pregnant women from drinking low-fat yogurt. Surveys show that women who drink more than 200 ml of low-fat fruit yogurt every day during pregnancy may be a risk factor for their children to develop asthma and allergic rhinitis in childhood. excitation. Du Songming, associate researcher at the Institute of Nutrition and Food Safety of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, suggested that the general population and pregnant women with normal weight are not recommended to choose low-fat or skim dairy products; when choosing dairy products, various samples should be selected alternately.
Professor Ekaterina Maslova said in an email interview with a reporter from \”Health Times\” that this study analyzed the dietary data of 70,000 Danish women during pregnancy and tracked their children until they were 7 years old. The risk of asthma is 1.6 times higher than if you don\’t drink low-fat yogurt.
This may be related to the lack of protective fatty acids in low-fat yogurt (ie, ruminant fatty acids, which refer to fatty acids formed by biohydrogenation in the rumen of ruminants such as cattle and sheep) or the addition of certain special fatty acids to low-fat yogurt. compounds, more likely related to unbalanced dietary patterns. Professor Ekaterina Maslova explains.
Asthma and allergic diseases have increased in children over the past few decades. Changes in the external environment and the mother\’s diet during pregnancy may affect the development of the child\’s immune system. The latest research has found that ruminant fatty acids have a positive effect on the development of the human immune system, and their content is higher in ruminant products (such as meat and milk).
Professor Ekaterina Maslova highlights the link between maternal consumption of low-fat yogurt during pregnancy and childhood asthmaFurther research is needed to confirm, but low-fat yogurt lacks ruminant fatty acids and is not a good source of essential fatty acids. Current findings suggest that mothers drinking whole milk during pregnancy may prevent the development of asthma in infants under 18 months of age.