Asthma

Food & asthma

10/02/2008 05:56AM

Question:

Dose it make a diffances if you have asthma you can not hove some foods because it makes your asthma worst?

Answer:

Certain foods naturally contain chemicals that can make asthma worse. Sulfite compounds are sometimes added as preservatives or appear naturally as a product of fermentation in certain foods. Sulfite compounds such as sulfur dioxide, metabisulfite and potassium sulfite have been implicated. Sulfites can cause asthma attacks in a small percentage of asthmatic patients. Some foods that typically can contain elevated sulfites are beer, wine, dried potato flakes, dried fruit, molasses, sauerkraut juice, shrimp and pickles. If you think that a particular food is making your asthma worse, you should talk to your doctor and arrange for an allergist to review the foods with you. There are rare reports of asthmatic reactions to other food additives, as well as reports of asthma being caused by food allergy. This needs to be discussed with your physician.

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Response by:

Charity C. Fox, MD
Clinical Assistant Professor
OSU Asthma Center
Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care & Sleep Medicine
Department of Internal Medicine
College of Medicine
The Ohio State University