Nutrition: A Healthy Diet May Keep Chronic Lung Disease at Bay

A diet rich in fruits, vegetables, fish, poultry and whole grain foods may offer protection against chronic lung disease, a new study suggests, in addition to the other benefits of such a regimen.
Researchers studied more than 42,000 male health professionals enrolled in a long-term study that began in 1986. All filled out food frequency questionnaires, and the scientists ranked them by how closely they followed what the authors call the “prudent” diet, or how much they stuck to a “Western” diet dominated by refined grains, cured and red meats, sweets and French fries. The study appeared online May 15 in Thorax.
After adjusting for age, smoking and other factors, the scientists found that the more strictly a person followed the prudent diet, the lower the risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or C.O.P.D., the umbrella term for chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Compared with the one-fifth of people with the highest intake of foods from the prudent diet, the one-fifth with the lowest intake were twice as likely to suffer from newly diagnosed C.O.P.D.
At the same time, the one-fifth of men who followed the Western diet most closely were more than four and a half times as likely to be diagnosed with chronic pulmonary disease as the one-fifth who ate the least from that menu.