Some things you might not know
1. SEATON stands for the Study of Eczema and Asthma To Observe the influence of Nutrition. The man behind the study is called Anthony Seaton and the study title was tweaked to reflect his name.
2. Childhood asthma became a very common condition in the UK during the 1980 and 1990s and a number of ideas were put forward to explain the “asthma epidemic” In 1994, Anthony Seaton and colleagues suggested that changes in the nation’s diet might explain the rise in childhood asthma.
3. The SEATON babies were born between December 1997 and December 1999, you are all from the last millennium!
4. The SEATON study was the first to ask the question “Does mother's diet when pregnant affect the chance of her child getting asthma or eczema?”
5. You are part of a world famous study!
6. Thanks to you (and your parents), we have written up the result which have been read and appreciated around world. One paper has been written about in more than 750 other papers.
7. We have shown that pregnant mothers whose diet contains plenty of foods like apples and fish and nutrients such as vitamin D and E have children at reduced risk of asthma in early childhood. Not unsurprisingly, as children become older their current environment becomes a more dominant effect on their health and wellbeing. However it is a good news story that a healthy diet during pregancy spares younger children from wheeze.
8. Research where half of a group of pregnant mothers were given vitamin D supplement and half were given a dummy pill has proved that what we saw in the SEATON study is a genuine cause and effect.
9. So knowing all about mum's diet during pregnancy is one "unique selling point (USP)" for the SEATON study. But we have a second USB. We have measurements of the unborn babies made by ultrasound scans when mume were pregnant. The Seaton Study is the first to demonstrate that smaller fetus have smaller lungs and increased risk for asthma when they grow to be children. This is evidence that the seeds of asthma are sown before birth; asthma is not just allergy, or due to things we breath in - some of us are predisposed to asthma from a very early age.
10. Your help with this research will help us to understand why some people get asthma and others don't, and to do this we really need young adults with and without asthma to help us and take part.
11. We would initially like you to answer some questions which you can do at home and then we’ll invite you to come to the hospital for some breathing and allergy tests. We know that many of you wil not be in Aberdeen these days. We can only do the tests in Aberdeen, so if you are popping back home please let us know. You can get a final look at where you were born (the Aberdeen Maternity Hospital) - and see the almost finished Baird hospital for Women.
12. Breathing Tests - These breathing tests measure the amount (volume) and speed (flow) of air you breath out and also the Nitric Oxide (NO) in your breath. We all breathe NO out but people with asthma have higher levels of this.
13. Blood test - we will see if you are allergic to grass, cat, eggs or dust mites.
14. Height, weight, waist and hip circumference are taken to see if these are linked to asthma. We will also measure the balance of fat and muscle in your body (called lean body mass an total body fat).
15. Anxiety and depression questionnaire. We know that as many as 25% of all young people experience anxiety and/or depression. There are many causes for this, and things happening in early life may be important. We would like to measure the level of anxity and depression in the cohort members and see how this is related to birth details we have. This is optional. Our team includes a psychologist who can help people who have a high score.