Family Life

05.17.10 |

Hold the hamburger and fried potatoes if you want to breathe easier. Australian researchers tested one of America's favorite meals on asthma patients and found the fatty foods blocked airways and hampered asthma medication. The researchers used hash browns instead of french fries with the burger, but the result was still a meal with a thousand calories, half of which came from fat. The scientists at Hunter Medical Research Institute in New South Wales fed 30 asthma sufferers plus 16 obese people. Half the asthma patients and all the obese people got the fatty meal. The other asthma patients got a meal of low-fat yogurt that was only 200 calories.

 The burger-eaters developed problems with inflamed airways and lower lung capacity. But their asthma inhalers only helped their lung power by about one-percent. The yogurt-eaters had fewer inflammation problems, and saw a four-and-half-percent improvement from using their inhalers. The researchers said that the body responded to the high-fat meal as if it were an invading pathogen.