| Summary: | 碩士 === 高雄醫學大學 === 公共衛生學研究所 === 100 === Background and objective: Previous epidemiological studies have demonstrated a positive correlation between air pollution and allergy or asthma, especially for children. The intake of vitamins may modulate the risk of asthma. Therefore, we will explore the relationship between nutritional factors and patients with allergies or asthma in low and high air pollution communities.
Materials and methods: This was a population-based, cross-sectional study in Taiwan (2000.7-2002.6). A population of 2,128 elementary schoolchildren was included for exploring the associations between air pollution, vitamins and allergies or asthma. The 2-year average values of hourly EPA air pollutant data (PM10, NO2, SO2, O3 and CO) were used to estimate air pollutant concentration exposures of the children using the inverse distance weighting (IDW) of the geographic information system (GIS) software. The intake data for vitamins A, B1, B2, B6, C and E were collected from a 24-hour dietary recall questionnaire. We further classified study areas into higher (first tertile, >66.6%) and lower (second and third tertile, ?T66.6%) air pollution areas based on tertile distributions of single air pollutants. The protective effects of vitamins on allergic diseases in higher and lower air pollution areas were determined by a multinomial logistic regression model after adjusting for potential confounding factors.
Results: We found a protective effect of vitamin A in higher NO2 (aOR=0.65, p=0.043), combinations of pollutants in high levels (NO2, PM10, SO2 and O3) (aOR=0.70, p=0.011), lower PM10 (aOR=0.67, p=0.013) and lower SO2 areas (aOR=0.68, p=0.020) on allergies; vitamin C in the lower SO2 level group on asthma (aOR=0.51, p=0.040); and vitamin B1 in the higher O3 level group on asthma (aOR=0.40, p=0.042). However, there was no significant effect of any vitamins on allergic children in high and low CO communities.
Conclusion: Our study demonstrated that certain intakes of specific vitamins are helpful to ameliorate allergy and asthma in children exposed to specific air pollutants. In general, vitamin A is the best antioxidant for allergic children who are exposed to multiple air pollutants.
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