Children and adolescents consuming trans fatty acids (TFA) face a heightened risk of asthma, researchers reported on Friday in a 10-city Indian study that echoed findings from Europe 25 years ago.

The researchers have found that schoolgoing children aged between 6 and 16 who ate TFA-laden food had more than double (2.16-fold) the risk of asthma compared with those who did not have dietary intake of TFA.

“This is another reason to stop consuming foods that contain trans fats,” said Shally Awasthi, a professor of paediatrics at the King George Medical University, Lucknow, who led the study. “Our study adds the risk of childhood asthma into the list of ill-effects of trans fats and, to some extent, also saturated fatty acids.”

Health experts have long cautioned about the risk of cardiovascular disorders from consuming TFAs, which are typically found in biscuits, cakes, cookies, pizza and snacks from confectionaries as well as in Indian foods such as samosas, chaat and jalebis.

Earlier studies outside India had hinted that TFAs in the diet can impact inflammatory processes that are involved in the biological mechanisms leading to asthma. A 2014 study from India had also hinted at the role of fried foods in asthma.

Awasthi and her colleagues analysed dietary fatty acid intake in 2,428 children and adolescents from randomly selected schools in Bengaluru, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Dibrugarh, Jodhpur, Lucknow, Manipal, Patna, Srinagar and Thiruvananthapuram.

They noted an overall asthma prevalence of 2.4 per cent — 58 of the 2,428 children had asthma. This prevalence level is significantly lower than earlier studies that estimated asthma levels in Indian children to be about 6 per cent.

The children’s diet was recorded based on recall on two consecutive weekdays and on a Sunday and the researchers used standard food tables from the National Institute of Nutrition to calculate the children’s fatty acid intake.

Their analysis has shown that each unit increase in either saturated fatty acids or TFAs was associated with increased risks of asthma. The 2.16-fold higher risk linked to TFAs indicates increased risk from even a small amount of additional intake.

"It is advisable to keep the amount of TFA in the diet to near zero to protect children from bronchial asthma and the potential heart disease and other chronic diseases,” the researcher said in their study, published in the journal Indian Paediatrics on Friday.

Respiratory disorder specialists have long classified asthma as a multi-factorial illness contributed by genetic and environmental factors. “We know air pollution is already contributing to the risk of asthma — our findings suggest that diet may also enhance the risk,” Awasthi said.

The International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood had reviewed data from 14 countries in Europe and reported a positive association between the intake of TFAs and asthma and allergic rhinoconjunctivitis.

“The hypothesis that (TFAs) may play a part in the development of childhood asthma and allergies seems worth pursuing,” Stephen K. Weiland at the University of Munster, Germany, and colleagues had noted in the journal Lancet in 1999.