Obesity-asthma link stronger in women than in men
Fri Sep 15, 2006 8:33 PM BST
By Megan Rauscher
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Obese women without allergies are at greater risk for asthma than obese men without allergies, according to a survey of 86,144 Canadian adults.
The aim of the survey was "to determine the modifying effects of sex and allergy history on the association between body mass index (BMI) and asthma prevalence," Dr. Yue Chen of the University of Ottawa and colleagues explain in the medical journal CHEST. BMI is the ratio of height to weight; a BMI higher than 30.0 is considered obese.
Compared with normal-weight women, obese women had an asthma risk that was 85 percent higher. The increased asthma risk in obese men was 21 percent compared with that seen in normal-weight men.
According to the investigators, one unit increase in BMI was associated with about a 6-percent increase in asthma risk in women, compared to 3 percent in men.
Our previous studies have "documented that obesity is associated with asthma but the relation was different in men and women," Dr. Chen told Reuters Health.
The current study, said Dr. Chen, shows that "women have a stronger relation between obesity and asthma than men do, although the reasons for this are not clear."
The study also suggests that obesity is more likely to be associated with nonallergic asthma, and that nonallergic asthma is more common in women.
"The greater prevalence of nonallergic asthma in women," the authors suggest, "may explain the stronger obesity-asthma association seen in women compared with men and children who have a greater prevalence of allergic asthma."
SOURCE: CHEST, September 2006.
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