| Summary: | Background: The prevalence of asthma in adults varied from 0.96% to 11.03% while in children ranged from 2.3% to 11.9% in India. A number of factors including genetic predisposition, environment, and lifestyle factors including dietary habits influence the development and expression of asthma. The goal of asthma treatment is to achieve and maintain clinical control, which can be achieved in a majority of patients with pharmacologic intervention strategy. Objective: To assess the role of diet and lifestyle factors in asthma control in Indian population. Materials and Methods: Diagnosed asthma patients (aged 12-40 years) were enrolled from the outpatient clinics. All patients were followed up and reassessed after 4 weeks with asthma control test (ACT) and dietary and lifestyle questionnaire. The assessment of dietary pattern was performed by food frequency questionnaire (Nordic Nutrition Recommendations-Danish Physical Activity Questionnaire). The lifestyle factor included body mass index, smoking status, tobacco chewing, alcohol consumption, duration of travel (h/week), mental stress (visual analog scale: 0-10), sports activity - h/day, television (TV) watching/video games - h/day, duration of sleep - h/day. Results: Seventy-five asthma patients (43 males and 32 females) were divided into three groups according to ACT, 18 (24%) patients in poorly-controlled asthma, 35 (46.7%) in well-controlled asthma, and 22 (29.3%) patients with totally-controlled asthma. Increased consumption of vegetables and cereals in patients with total-controlled asthma while increased consumption of sugar, nonvegetarian, fast food, salted and fried snacks in patients with poorly-controlled asthma. Poorly-controlled asthma had the highest duration of watching TV and sleep and least duration of travel and sports, though the results failed to reach statistical significance. Conclusion: The dietary and lifestyle factors too contribute to degree of control of asthma in India.
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