It is universal knowledge that obese people are very prone to developing asthma, and that goes for women especially. But now it seems that one of the most relevant factors here is abdominal obesity, or having a too large waist.
A study published in Thorax describes a research that was carried out at the Northern California Cancer Centre using the statistics culled over almost 15 years (since 1995). The scientists worked through the data taken from the California Teachers Study encompassing 133,479 female teachers and members of the administrations of public school all over California including those who were retired and drew retirement benefits. They were asked to fill in four questionnaires during the period from 1995 through to 2005.
88,304 women were analyzed. The analysis showed that 13 percent of them (11,500) were obese at the time they filled their first questionnaire in 1995, 1,334 of them being immoderately obese.
(Your weight is considered normal if your body mass index (BMI) is under 25.)
Then the California Cancer Centre scientists compared the data with the lists of those suffering from adult asthma with those who were and who weren’t overweight at age 18 regarded separately.
The results showed that urgent medical consultations and hospital admissions due to adult onset asthma occurred more than two times frequently with obese women and more than three times with those who were immoderately obese.
Also the researchers established a link between an increased asthma risk and large waists (with circumference exceeding 34 inches) even if the women’s BMI was rated normal!
Source of the image: sxc.hu/profile/asolario.
