Effects of Childhood Asthma on the Development of Obesity among School-aged Children

Abstract

Rationale: Asthma and obesity often occur together in children. It is unknown whether asthma contributes to the childhood obesity epidemic.Objectives: We aimed to investigate the effects of asthma and asthma medication use on the development of childhood obesity.Methods: The primary analysis was conducted among 2,171 nonobese children who were 5-8 years of age at study enrollment in the Southern California Children's Health Study (CHS) and were followed for up to 10 years. A replication analysis was performed in an independent sample of 2,684 CHS children followed from a mean age of 9.7 to 17.8 years.Measurements and Main Results: Height and weight were measured annually to classify children into normal, overweight, and obese categories. Asthma status was ascertained by parent-or self-reported physician-diagnosed asthma.Cox proportional hazards models were fitted to assess associations of asthma history with obesity incidence during follow-up. We found that children with a diagnosis of asthma at cohort entry were at 51% increased risk of developing obesity during childhood and adolescence compared with children without asthma at baseline (hazard ratio, 1.51; 95% confidence interval, 1.08-2.10) after adjusting for confounders. Use of asthma rescue medications at cohort entry reduced the risk of developing obesity (hazard ratio, 0.57; 95% confidence interval, 0.33-0.96). In addition, the significant association between a history of asthma and an increased risk of developing obesity was replicated in an independent CHS sample.Conclusions: Children with asthma may be at higher risk of obesity. Asthma rescue medication use appeared to reduce obesity risk independent of physical activity.

Obesity and severe asthma

“…A recent report from the Southern California Children’s Health Study suggests that asthma may also lead to obesity (25). The authors followed more than 2000 initially non obese children for up to 10 years.…”

Gene Coexpression Networks in Whole Blood Implicate Multiple Interrelated Molecular Pathways in Obesity in People with Asthma

“…Asthma BRIDGE consists of an ethnically diverse set of asthmatic adults from the United States who were studied as part of the EVE Consortium on asthma genetics and who were further characterized with blood gene expression profiles . For the current study, we used a subset of adult Asthma BRIDGE subjects from the Southern California Children's Health Study (CHS) for whom both longitudinal asthma and obesity phenotypes were available, spanning childhood (aged 5 to 8 years of age at study enrollment) until early adulthood . GACRS consists of asthmatic children (aged 6 to 14 years) ascertained from the Central Valley of Costa Rica, a population isolate with a high prevalence of asthma .…”

“…More detail for each analysis stage can be found in Methods and in the online Supporting Information., QC, quality control; WGCNA, weighted gene coexpression network analysis; GSEA, gene set enrichment analysis. from the Southern California Children's Health Study (CHS) for whom both longitudinal asthma and obesity phenotypes were available, spanning childhood (aged 5 to 8 years of age at study enrollment) until early adulthood (13). GACRS consists of asthmatic children (aged 6 to 14 years) ascertained from the Central Valley of Costa Rica, a population isolate with a high prevalence of asthma (14).…”

Pediatric obesity‐related asthma: A prototype of pediatric severe non‐T2 asthma

“…This association varies by sex . Moreover, the association between asthma and obesity appears to be bidirectional, since asthma increases the relative risk for obesity by 1.5‐1.7‐fold . Although few studies have investigated the underlying biologic mechanisms, there is epidemiologic evidence to suggest that asthma developing as a consequence of obesity is nonallergic …”