The stillness of the night is interrupted by a wheezing, gasping, choked-off cry for help. It is the sound that every parent of an asthmatic child dreads... and they know it will come. It is a matter of when, not if.

A multitude of things run through the mind of the parent.

What caused this?

Will the steroid inhaler be enough?

As they fire up the nebuliser machine, they wonder if that will be enough or should they call an ambulance now?

Would it be an over-reaction to call an ambulance, to cry wolf?

If they wait, could that result in their child suffocating as the asthma squeezes the life out of them?

The anguish experienced by the parents of an asthmatic child, as well as the misery and distress that asthma puts children th rough, has to be experienced to be understood. Recent research has offered a glimmer of hope to parents.

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the respiratory system, which has become increasingly common throughout the developed world during the past few decades.

The obvious question raised in the minds of doctors is why.

As doctors have gained a greater appreciation of the role that what we eat has to play in chronic inflammation, attention has been drawn to the changes in Western diet, largely since the mid-20th Century, and how these changes appear to have a correlation with the increasing incidence of chronic inflammatory diseases such as asthma.

As far back as 1990 doctors began to connect the dots between the declining intake of natural anti-inflammatory agents (such as the omega-3 fatty acids in marine oils) and a corresponding increase in asthma.

The soon-to-be-published result of a childhood asthma trial has provided more evidence that the increasing rate of asthma among youngsters can be countered by increasing the intake of marine oil in the diet.

The trial was conducted through Asthma New Zealand and sought to find out if increasing the dietary intake of omega-3 fatty acids would reduce the frequency and severity of childhood asthma attacks.

It did.

A paper written about the trial has been accepted by the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, the official publication of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

One of the main measures used in the trial was how the children rated their quality of life during the study period.

This was measured by an international standard known as the Juniper Scale, which involved set questions and a scale of one to seven.

What the researchers found was that 85.2 per cent of the children reported that they had “none or hardly any problems” with asthma by the end of the trail period.

The children were given four capsules per day of fatty acids unique to the New Zealand green-lipped mussel.

The extracted chains of fatty acids have been given the name PCSO-524 and are exclusive to a product called Lyprinol.

PCSO-524 is the result of a process developed by Australian and Japanese scientists, who found a way to extract the fragile fatty acid molecular chains and prevent them being destroyed by oxidisation.

The New Zealand trial was designed by Dr Allen Laing, a paediatric allergy specialist.

The work was carried out by general practitioner Dr Jim Lello; scientist Elizabeth Robinson of the Department of Community Health at the University of Auckland; and nurses Debra Leutenegger and Ann Wheat of Asthma New Zealand.

The study authors wrote: “Lyprinol significantly improved the percentage of children reporting little or no trouble with their asthma at three months of treatment.

“We conclude that Lyprinol is a safe nutritional supplement for children with moderate asthma and that larger prospective controlled studies should explore its potential use as a neutraceutical in asthma as an addition to conventional treatment.”

The New Zealand trial supported earlier work by respiratory specialists in London and St Petersburg, who reported a 50 per cent decrease in the frequency and severity of childhood asthma among subjects who were given daily doses of PCSO-524.1

Extensive research on the link between omega-3 in the diet and the frequency and severity of asthma has been published in medical journals.

One of the most referenced studies was of the comparative rates of asthma among Inuit in Greenland and Denmark.2

The Inuit study, which was published in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, examined 4,162 Inuit, about half of whom lived in Denmark and had a typical westernised diet.

The other half still lived in Greenland. Some lived traditional lifestyles in remote fishing villages and others lived in urban settings.

What the study found was that the rate of asthma among the Inuit who still lived in villages and ate mostly fish rich in omega-3 fatty acids was 72.2 per cent less than among the Inuit who had moved to Denmark and adopted a modern westernised diet low in omega-3 fatty acids.

Current medical treatment for asthma involves the use of inhaled steroids, which have been reported to cause growth retardation in children, weight gain and the eye disease glaucoma.

On 12 June 2009, the United States Government’s Food and Drug Administration mandated a warning on the latest generation of asthma drugs, known as leukotriene inhibitors, which stated that they caused agitation, aggression, anxiety, dream abnormalities, hallucinations, depression, insomnia, irritability, restlessness and thoughts of suicide.

References
1. Emelyanov A., Barnes P. J. et al Treatment of asthma with lipid extract of New Zealand green-lipped mussel: a randomised clinical trial. European Respiratory Journal 2002; 20: 596-600

2. Backer V., et al. Respiratory symptoms in Greenlanders living in Greenland and Denmark: a population-based study. Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology 2004; 93: 76-82.