Can My Diet Help My Asthma?
If you have asthma, you may be curious about whether certain foods and diet choices could help you manage your condition. There is no quick fix food to cure asthma, but making some changes in ones diet may help reduce or control asthma symptoms.
According to Holly Prehn, “a healthy, varied diet plan is beneficial in asthma.”
So what should I eat? Read on for five (5) specific foods to include in an asthma-friendly diet.
• Fish. It’s all about the omega-3 fatty acids, especially in fatty fish like salmon, herring, tuna, and sardines. They help lessen the amount of IgE the body makes. That’s an antibody that causes breathing problems in some people with asthma.
• Vitamin D. We get most of it from sunshine, but it is also in some foods. The top choice is fatty fish like salmon followed by milk, eggs, and orange juice, which are often “fortified” with vitamin D.
• Tomatoes. Foods made from tomatoes seem to help people with asthma. Scientists think it may be the lycopene that helps most.
• Ginger. It helps relieve asthma symptoms. That is because certain components in ginger might help relax the airways.
• Spinach. Leafy greens like spinach are packed with vitamins and minerals, but they also contain folate (a B vitamin), which could be especially important for people with asthma.
