Comparing the asthma control in overweight/obese and normal weight pediatric patients: A retrospective study in West Texas

Abstract

Asthma is one of the most common chronic diseases in children. Excess weight is thought to contribute adversely to this disease and has been associated with both an increased incidence and severity of asthma in multiple studies. However, this information does not seem to be conclusive, since there are also studies showing either no relationship or a relationship only in certain subpopulations of children. The aim of this study was to see if we could identify any pattern in the relationship of weight and asthma severity and control in our pediatric population at a university affiliated clinic in rural West Texas. We were unable to find statistically significant differences either in the overall population or in the boys or girls subpopulations. We estimate based on our results that future studies would need at least 800 children to achieve adequate statistical power. More well designed studies are needed to clarify and confirm the relationship between obesity and asthma control and severity in children.