Effect on FEV1 of albuterol administered in obese and non-obese children without asthma to assess bronchial reversibility

RATIONALE: Obesity is considered a risk factor for impaired lung function, the objective of this study was to determine the effect of albuterol in VEF1 in obese, overweight and eutrophic children without clinical evidence of asthma.

METHODS: A prospective study in patients 8-16 years of age. Patients were integrated into three groups according to the presence or absence of obesity and/ or overweight according to their anthropometric measurements of BMI using reference tables of the World Health Organization (WHO), After complete medical history a spirometry was performed according to the standards of the American Thoracic Society (ATS); after first spirometry, nebulized albuterol was administered, a second spirometry was performed.

RESULTS: 182 patients, mean age were 10.23±2.4 years old, classification after BMI assessment were: 60 obese (BMI 29.03±4.3kg/m²), 56 overweight (BMI 22.4±2.6kg/m²) and 66 eutrophic (BMI 17.4±2.1kg/m²), no significant differences in FEV1 baseline quantification in the three groups, the mean FEV1: Obese 2.33±0.63 l/sec, Overweight 2.43 ±0.89 l/sec and eutrophic 2.35±0.89 l/sec. After assessing bronchial reversibility in the second spirometry there were differences in the 3 groups in the variability percentage: obese, average 13.43±11.2%, overweight 7.7%±5.6% and 6.11±5.46% in eutrophic. There were statistically significant differences when comparing eutrophic with obese patients (p=0.018).

CONCLUSIONS: Over 23% of obese patients had asymptomatic presence of bronchial obstruction at the time of the study, significant differences with eutrophic patients. Comparing data published in obese asthmatic patients with our non-asthmatic obese patients show a similar FEV1 and percentages in the variability, which could hypothesize a "degree" of asymptomatic bronchial obstruction.