BMC Pediatr. 2025 Oct 20;25(1):823. doi: 10.1186/s12887-025-06027-3.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: We aimed to investigate the association between dietary carotenoids and acute respiratory infection (ARI) in the general US population.
METHODS: We analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2003 – 2018 and 64,560 participants with complete records of dietary intake and ARI definition. Five major dietary carotenoids were evaluated: α-carotene, β-carotene, lycopene, β-cryptoxanthin, and lutein plus zeaxanthin. Survey-weight logistic regression and restricted cubic spline were applied.
RESULTS: The relationship between dietary carotenoids and ARI risk followed a linear trend. Participants in the highest quartile of dietary carotenoid intake exhibited a 15% lower risk of ARI than those in the lowest quartile (multi-adjusted odds ratio [OR]: 0.85, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.72 – 0.99). Individually, the association with ARI was consistently significant for β-carotene (multi-adjusted OR, 95% CI: 0.82, 0.69 – 0.98), β-cryptoxanthin (0.77, 0.66 – 0.91), lycopene (0.86, 0.75 – 0.99), and lutein plus zeaxanthin (0.84, 0.71 – 0.99). There was a significant inverse relationship between total carotenoid intake and ARI among children aged 1 – 18 years(multi-adjusted OR, 95% CI: 0.74, 0.57 – 0.97 for the highest quartile, and 0.78, 0.63 – 0.96 for the third quartile compared with lowest quartile).
CONCLUSIONS: In this US national general population, our findings indicated that higher dietary carotenoid intake was inversely associated with ARI risk.
PMID:41111147 | DOI:10.1186/s12887-025-06027-3
