Obese preschoolers had up to five weeks more symptoms of their asthma compared to non-obese children with asthma.
In a study publishing Dec 19 in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, preschoolers with a body mass index (BMI) beyond the 84th percentile who weren’t using an inhaler had 70% more days with asthma symptoms per year than untreated peers of a healthy weight.
However, obesity doesn’t seem to lessen the effectiveness of corticosteroid inhalers. When used daily, inhalers reduced the number of symptom-days and asthma attacks in both healthy and overweight children, and may even be more protective to overweight children, the authors found.
