Adults with asthma often need to take corticosteroids to help them breathe, but research shows that some medications may increase the risk of obesity in these patients..

“Oral corticosteroids are often given to asthma patients, especially those who have had a long history of asthma, and oral corticosteroids have been found to have a direct effect on the development of obesity among these asthmatics,” says lead researcher Subhabrata Moitra, a PhD student at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada..

Moitra noted that patients using inhaled corticosteroids were not at increased risk of obesity..

“Often, oral corticosteroids are prescribed indiscriminately without looking for other alternatives,” he said.. “This is one of the main reasons that oral corticosteroids have been a very important risk factor for obesity.”.

Physicians have many alternatives to oral corticosteroids for asthma, including inhaled corticosteroids and newer biologics, Moitra said.. Patients who know what causes their asthma can also avoid these triggers.. Some triggers may be related to work, air pollution or tobacco smoke, he says..

Using data from the European Community Respiratory Health Survey between 1990 and 2014 and seeing more than 8,700 people about every 10 years, Moitra's team found that about 15% of those who did not have asthma were obese, compared with nearly 17% of those who did.. The researchers found that after controlling for factors like asthma and smoking, people with asthma had a 21% higher risk of becoming obese than people without asthma..

People who had asthma the longest had a 32% higher risk of obesity than those who had asthma for the shortest time.. People taking oral corticosteroids had a 99% higher risk of obesity compared to those who did not take these medications.. The researchers found that these risks were the same for both women and men..

“It should be known that among obese patients with asthma, discontinuation of oral corticosteroids will not automatically lead to weight loss.. In addition, obesity makes it difficult to control asthma,” Moitra said..

The report was published online April 27th in Thorax magazine..

“The link between obesity and asthma has been well established, as obesity not only increases the risk of developing asthma, but also increases asthma severity, makes it harder to control asthma, and reduces the effectiveness of standard medications,” says Dr. Sherri Farzan, an allergist and immunologist at Northwell Health at. , New York.

It is well known that oral corticosteroids cause weight gain, especially when used chronically.. The role of oral corticosteroids in the obesity observed in this study is understandable but does not fully explain the effect because patients who did not take these drugs also had a greater risk of obesity, Farzan noted..

This study highlights the importance of careful use of oral corticosteroids in asthmatics as they may be the only controllable variable contributing to obesity..

medical-heal. en.