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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A new study shows that obese adults tend to suffer more severe asthma symptoms than their normal-weight counterparts -- suggesting that excess pounds exacerbate the lung condition.
A number of studies have found that obese people are at greater risk of developing asthma, but whether weight affects asthma severity has been unclear.
In the current study, researchers found that of more than 3,000 U.S. adults with asthma, those who were obese tended to have more severe and more persistent symptoms, as well as more missed workdays.
This remained true when the researchers accounted for a number of health-related factors, including age, race, income and family history of asthma.
The findings suggest that weight control should be a fundamental part of asthma management, report the researchers, led by Dr. Fernando Holguin of Emory University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
The investigators report the results in the medical journal Thorax.
The study included 3,095 adults who were asked about their asthma symptoms over the previous 5 years. One third of the participants were obese.
The researchers found that compared with normal-weight adults, those who were obese were 66 percent more likely to say they'd suffered continuous symptoms over the past month, and 42 percent more likely to have symptoms consistent with severe, persistent asthma.
Obese asthmatics also tended to need more medication and miss more days from work.
The findings do not prove that obesity itself worsens asthma, according to Holguin's team, and it's not yet clear why, from a biological standpoint, excess weight would make asthma more severe.
"Obviously, not every adult with asthma who becomes obese develops more severe disease," the researchers note.
Still, they conclude, the evidence connecting obesity and asthma severity is strong enough to have an impact on asthma management.
The researchers recommend that "asthma treatment guidelines should aggressively pursue weight control as an integral part of their treatment strategy."
SOURCE: Thorax, January 2008.
