Obesity and asthma

There has long been an impression that overweight children are more likely to wheeze, but although the association has been well-defined in adults, until now studies in children have been inconclusive. Asthma definition is problematic, particularly as ‘physician-diagnosed’ asthma with no objective measures may be subject to bias: overweight children may be more likely to report feeling breathless, and doctors may be more inclined to declare a fat child to be asthmatic than a thin one.

As with many things, the USA leads the world, both in prevalence of childhood obesity, and in research addressing its associations. The development of the PEDSnet database has facilitated epidemiological research involving huge numbers. It gathers health and biometric data on all children receiving healthcare, including primary care, in six large urban centres in the US. Using this, researchers set out to analyse newly incident asthma in a cohort of over half a...

from Archives of Disease in Childhood current issue http://bit.ly/2NgbCNr