Obesity may exacerbate asthma in children

Asthma and obesity are common health problems in children. This study investigated the impact of obesity on children hospitalized with acute asthma exacerbation and it was found that obesity was a risk factor for repeated hospital admissions.The study was published in Pediatric Allergy & Immunology .

The researchers went through hospital discharge records of inpatients aged 3-8 years with a diagnosis of asthma using a national inpatient database in Japan. The patients were classified into underweight, normal weight, overweight, and obese groups using weight for height and body mass index for age provided by the World Health Organization. They compared 30-day re-admission, need for intensive care, mean total hospitalization costs, and length of hospital stay between the 4 groups using multivariable regression models.

The study included 38,679 patients, including 3177 underweight, 28,904 normal weight, 3334 overweight, and 3264 obese patients. Those in the obese group were more likely to be readmitted to the hospital within 30-days of discharge and to have longer hospital stays than those in the normal-weight group. No significant difference was observed between the four groups regarding the need for intensive care and total hospitalization costs.

"Our investigations provide important information for the prevention of obesity in children with asthma," wrote the authors of the study.