Anthropometric measurements and indicators of body fat distribution in patients with bronchial asthma

Abstract EN

Background : previous studies repeatedly demonstrate a higher prevalence of bronchial asthma (BA) in subjects with high as well as low body mass index (BMI).

This U-shaped associations between BMI and BA raise a question whether indicators of body fat distribution are helpful to predict BA prevalence and symptom control.

the aim of this study was to evaluate anthropometric measurements and indicators of body fat distribution in asthmatic patients.

materials and methods : one hundred and twenty asthmatic patients were recruited from chest refer clinics-military hospital, Khartoum, Sudan and served as the test group.

another 59 non–asthmatic subjects were recruited from co-patients, University students/employees and served as the control group.

following clinical and spirometric evaluation of the studied subjects, the following were measured : body weight, height, waist circumference (WC), hip circumference (HC), triceps (TSF), biceps (BSF), subscapular (SSSF) and suprailiac (SISF) skinfolds thicknesses and the ratio between waist and hip circumferences (WHR).

body fat percent (BF %) and BMI were calculated.

Based on BMI, studied subjects were categorized into four classes: underweight, normal weight, overweight, and obese.

results : although BMI, HC, TSF, BSF, SSSF, SISF and BF% were higher in asthmatic patients compared to non-asthmatic subjects, the difference of each of these parameters did not reach statistical significance.

WC and WHR were significantly higher in asthmatic patients (88.50 (78.00- 101.75), 83.00 (78.47- 90.17)) compared with non-asthmatic subjects (81.00 (72.00- 92.00), 80.00 (75.67- 85.10), P = 0.004, 0.003).

presence of BA in underweight subject was comparable to normal BMI subjects (OR=1.05).

however, presence of BA increases steadily in overweight (OR=1.46) and obese subjects (OR=2.67) compared with normal BMI subjects.

presence of symptoms at the time of the study increases in underweight (OR=3.55), overweight (OR=2.13) as well as obese (OR=3.43) compared to normal BMI subjects.

conclusion : the results of the present study provide further evidence for the association between BA and obesity.

although all indicators of body fat distribution were higher in asthmatic patients compared to non-asthmatic subjects, only WC and WHR reached statistical significance, which points to the importance of abdominal obesity in the pathophysiology of BA.