Adult asthmatics at higher risk of developing obesity, reveals study

The key findings of this study were as follows:

1. This study comprised 7576 individuals from ECRHS I-II (51.5% female, 34 (7) year mean (SD) age) and 4976 from ECRHS II-III (51.3% female, 42 (8) year mean (SD) age).

2. In ECRHS I-II, 9% of individuals were fat, whereas 15% became obese in ECRHS II—III.

3. The risk of developing obesity was higher in asthmatics than in non-asthmatics (RR 1.22), and especially higher in non-atopics than atopics (1.47; 1.17 to 1.86 vs 1.04; 0.86 to 1.27), those with longer disease duration (1.32; 1.10 to 1.59 in >20 years vs 1.12; 0.87 to 1.43 in 20 years), and those on oral corticosteroids (1.99; 1.26 to 3.15 vs 1.15; 1.03 to 1.28). 

4. Physical activity wasn't really shown to be a moderator of this connection.

In conclusion, Oral corticosteroid usage and asthma duration may be confounders, indicating that asthma severity is the major factor related to obesity incidence. The research, on the other hand, emphasizes the need of using oral corticosteroids with caution in asthmatics, since they may be the only controllable component leading to obesity.

Reference:

Moitra, S., Carsin, A.-E., Abramson, M. J., Accordini, S., Amaral, A. F. S., Anto, J., Bono, R., Casas Ruiz, L., Cerveri, I., Chatzi, L., Demoly, P., Dorado-Arenas, S., Forsberg, B., (2022). Long-term effect of asthma on the development of obesity among adults: an international cohort study, ECRHS. In Thorax. BMJ. https://doi.org/10.1136/thoraxjnl-2021-217867