PARIS, Sept 18 — New research presented at the European Respiratory Society International Congress 2018 has found that adults with asthma may have a greater risk of becoming obese later in life than those without the condition.

Drawing on data from from the European Community Respiratory Health Survey, the research looked at 8,618 people from 12 countries including Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and Australia, none of whom were classified as obese at the beginning of the study.

Participants were defined as having asthma if they had ever experienced an asthma attack, were currently taking asthma medication, or if they had been woken up by an attack of shortness of breath in the last 12 months.

After taking into account other risk factors for obesity, such as age, sex, country and physical activity levels, the team found that 10.2 per cent of those who had asthma at the start of the study had become obese 10 years later.

Among those who did not have asthma, 7.7 per cent were obese 10 years later.

The researchers also found that those who developed asthma as adults and those who had asthma but did not suffer with allergies had the greatest risk of becoming obese.

“We already know that obesity can be a trigger for asthma, perhaps via a physiological, metabolic or inflammatory change,” said Dr Subhabrata Moitra from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, who presented the research.

“Until now there has been very little research on whether the reverse is true — whether asthma can lead to obesity. In this study, we have enough people and we have followed them for long enough to observe the relationship between these two conditions.

“Our findings suggest the relationship between the two conditions is more complicated than we previously realized. It's important that we do more work to pick this apart. For example, we do not know why having asthma increases the risk of developing obesity or whether different asthma treatments have any effect on this risk.”

The European Respiratory Society International Congress 2018 started September 15 in Paris, France and runs through tomorrow. — AFP-Relaxnews