Methods: randomized single blinded controlled clinical trial. Sample consisted in obese children and adolescents with hypertriglyceridemia attending our clinic, they were randomly assigned to either group 1 (G1), which received 3gr/day of EPA-DHEA, or group 2 (G2), which received 3gr/day of gelatin as placebo daily for two months. Spirometry and methacholine challenge tests were made to both groups at baseline, and 1 and 2 months later. We obtained central tendency and dispersion measures, and differences were analyzed by Student's t test for independent samples, considering p<0.05 as statistical significance, also intra-group paired differences were made.
Results: The total sample consisted of 97 obese children and adolescents with mean age of 12 +/- 1.3 years (range of 8-16 years), 46 females (46.9%) and 51 males (53.1%). At baseline both groups had similar spirometric and metacholine challenge-test values G1: FVC: 3.48 L/min, FEV1: 3.07 L/min, FEF25-75% 31.3 L/min; G2: FVC: 3.33 L/min, FEV1: 2.92 L/min, FEF25-75% - 3.3 L/min (p>0.05). FEV1 was significantly reduced in active treatment group with baseline mean (3.07L/min) compared to visit 1 (2.94L/min) and to visit 2 (2.92L/min).
Conclusions: Diet-supplementation with EPA-DHEA had no effect on bronchial hyper-responsiveness assesed by methacholine challenge test after 1 and 2 months of treatment. However diet-supplementation with EPA-DHEA showed a deleterious effect on FEV1 in the active treatment group, of notice, this was only an spirometric finding, no clinical effects were observed during treatment.