Chest
Clinical InvestigationsThe Relation of Body Mass Index to Asthma, Chronic Bronchitis, and Emphysema
Section snippets
Materials and Methods
We used data that were collected as part of the Tucson Epidemiologic Study of Airways Obstructive Diseases, a prospective cohort study on a stratified cluster sample of white non-Mexican American households enrolled between March 1972 and April 1973. Details of the enrollment process and interview techniques have been previously reported.10 Briefly, square blocks in the Tucson area were stratified based on the age of the head of the household, ethnic group, and socioeconomic status, and
Analysis 1
In Table 1, each of the AOD groups is compared to the control group. Unlike the asthma and CB groups, the proportion of male subjects in the emphysema group was significantly higher than in the control group. As expected, asthmatics were more likely to be atopic and had higher total IgE levels than control subjects. Patients with CB and patients with emphysema also had higher levels of total IgE than control subjects, but their geometric means were lower than those of patients with asthma, and
Discussion
There is an increasing interest in the relationship between obesity and asthma; however, there is a lack of prospective studies on the issue. By using a large longitudinal cohort, we were able to confirm the association between obesity and asthma. We found, in fact, that subjects with a BMI ≥ 28 had an increased risk of acquiring asthma. The potential confounding effect of COPD on this association was addressed by excluding asthmatic patients with other previous AOD in analysis 1 and by
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors thank Margaret Kurzius-Spencer, MS, MPH, for her comments and suggestions.
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At the time of the study, Dr. Guerra was a fellow from the Institute of Respiratory Diseases, IRCCS Policlinico Hospital, University of Milan, Italy.
Drs. Guerra, Sherrill, and Martinez were funded by grant No. HL 56177 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.