Table 4.

Highlighted studies on obesity and asthma severity and control

Reference	Study population	Study design	Main findings	Notes
Musaad et al25	1123 children aged 5–18 years followed in a specialty asthma clinic	Cross-sectional study	Central obesity was associated with 2.63-fold increased odds of moderate to severe asthma (95% CI 1.19–5.82) in children with allergic rhinitis	Additional analyses using structural equation modeling also suggested that there was a stronger relationship between asthma and central obesity than overall obesity
Quinto et al28	32,321 children aged 5–17 years	Retrospective cohort study using electronic health records	Obesity associated with increased prescriptions for short-acting rescue medications for asthma (OR 1.17, 95% CI 1.06–1.29)
Lang et al20	43 adolescents aged 12–17 years (total study population 490 children, adolescents, and adults)	Post hoc analysis of subset of participants in a randomized controlled trial of therapy step-down strategies	Obese females aged 12–17 years had worse Asthma Control Questionnaire scores than nonobese females (P = 0.008)	There was also a trend toward lower FEV1 values in obese females
Kattan et al23	386 minority adolescents aged 12–20 years	Sub-study of placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial	Higher BMI associated with increased asthma symptom days in females only (R = 0.18, P = 0.02)	Asthma medications were adjusted by specialist providers during 1-year clinical trial
Ross et al37	108 children aged 4–18 years followed in specialty asthma clinic	Prospective cohort study	No relationship between BMI percentile and asthma severity in adjusted analyses	Sleep-disordered breathing was associated with asthma severity. Relationship strongest in children with BMI z-score ≥ 2

Abbreviations: BMI, body mass index; CI, confidence interval; FEV₁, forced expiratory volume in I second; OR, odds ratio.