Resumen de Obesity and asthma: An association modified by age

Francisco Javier González Barcala, Sonia Pértega Díaz, Teresa-Rosalía Pérez-Castro, Manuel Sampedro Campos, Juan Manuel Sánchez Lastres, Miguel Ángel San José González, Luis Bamonde Rodríguez, Luciano Garnelo Suárez, Luis Valdés Cuadrado, José Domingo Moure González, José Martín Carreira Villamor, Angel López-Silvarrey Varela

• Background Some studies indicate some causal relationship between obesity and asthma, while others show inconsistent results. Our objective was to evaluate the prevalence of asthma according to obesity in children.

  Methods A cross-sectional study, following the ISAAC study methodology, was conducted on two randomly selected groups consisting of 6�7 year-old children (n=7485) and 13�14 year-old adolescents (n=8496).

  The asthma symptoms and potential risk factors were determined from the questionnaire. Overweight and obesity were defined based on the body mass index.

  Multiple logistic regression was used to obtain adjusted prevalence odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals.

  Results Obesity was associated with an increase in wheezing ever (OR: 1.35) and exercise-induced asthma (OR: 1.62) in the 6�7 year-old group. No significant relationship was observed in the adolescent population.

  Conclusion Obesity was associated with a higher prevalence of asthma in young children, but not in adolescents.