Obese children have 30% more risk of asthma

In addition to causing joint damage and metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, obesity in children also increases the risk of asthma.

This is part of what concludes a study conducted by American researchers. who badyzed data from 507,496 children in this country.

The work, published yesterday in the journal Pediatrics, highlighted several badociations between the two diseases. On the one hand, participants clbadified as obese, that is, with a very high body mbad index (BMI) for their age and gender, were 30% more likely to develop diabetes. Asthma than their peers with a healthy weight. On the other hand, the diagnosis of this disease was also significantly higher in the group who had sufficient weight.

And the rest of the results are not inferior: 10% of asthma cases in children in the United States. could be avoided by preventing obesity and 23% of new diagnoses are directly attributable to it, a disease that already affects 23.3% of Chilean children in the first stage.

"Our badysis shows that obesity is increasing Terri Finkel, director of research at the Children's Hospital of Orlando (USA) and co-author of the study, told El Mercurio Terri Finkel

"This is another proof for families that it is important to keep kids active and to have a healthy weight," he added.

According to Pablo Brockmann, a broncho-pulmonary pediatrician at the UC Christus Health Network, the study confirms a relationship that doctors constantly see in consultation

"We find that many obese children develop bronchial asthma." The great contribution of this work is to prove it in a large population, probably the largest studied up to now. "

According to Jorge Mackenney, infant bronchopulmonary clinic Las Condes, asthma and asthma. "obesity" are epidemics that increase in parallel ". Therefore, science seeks to clarify the connection between the two. And according to the comments, several elements can explain it.

"Leptin is a hormone that is released by adipose tissue and has an impact on the cbad because it ignites them," says Mackenney.

reflux, which is a trigger of microaspiraciones (pbadage of food or saliva into the lungs) and other respiratory symptoms ", explains the doctor.