Objective: Studies concerning asthma in Lebanon investigated environmental and personal factors but none of them took into account the effect of nutritional habits. Our objective is to assess the effect of nutritional habits on asthma and allergies in Lebanese children aged 3-16 years old. Methods: This is a case-control study, conducted between December 2015 and April 2016. The Food Frequency Questionnaire was composed of 16 semi-quantitative questions covering different food categories. Results: This study included 1,276 children (976 healthy and 300 asthmatic children). Eating dairy products less than twice a week, 3-6 times per week and daily were significantly and inversely associated with asthma, as compared to never eating dairy products (p = 0.02, ORa = 0.285, CI 0.099-0.821; p < 0.001, ORa = 0.140, CI 0.052-0.378 and p < 0.001, ORa = 0.161, CI 0.061-0.422), whereas eating red meat daily compared to never was associated with asthma significantly (p = 0.037, ORa = 2.051, CI 1.046-4.024). Eating nuts less than twice weekly as compared to never was significantly and inversely associated with asthma (p = 0.035, ORa = 0.597, CI 0.369-0.965). The age categories 7-10 and 11-13 years were significantly associated with asthma as compared to the 3-6 years category (p < 0.001, ORa = 3.359, CI 1.869-6.038 and p = 0.008, ORa = 2.191, CI 1.228-3.909, respectively), while male gender was significantly more prone to asthma (p = 0.014, ORa = 0.686, CI 0.507-0.926). Conclusions: Knowing the correlation between nutritional habits and asthma is important to promote healthy eating. Educational programs for parents about healthy food and breastfeeding encouragement is warranted.
Keywords: Asthma; children; dairy products; nuts; red meat.