New Research in Medicine: Obesity and Lung Function
Thanks to a wealth of media exposure, it’s no secret that obesity is one of the most significant medical problems facing the world today. Obesity causes a cornucopia of health issues, some of them lethal, and the population of people with obesity is increasing rapidly – according to the WHO, obesity has “more than doubled” since 1980, and the same source estimates that in 2008 “more than one in ten” adults worldwide was obese. Today, however, our focus is not on epidemiology, but on a specific facet of this disease: obesity’s relationship to lung function.
A study published in this month’s issue of Obesity examines exactly that. Pulmonary function tests were administered to “188 nonsmoking subjects with primary obesity”, and the results of these tests were compared to the length of time each subject was obese. A definite correlation emerged: “lung function was significantly lower in subjects with greater years of obesity”. This observation was especially apparent when comparing “subjects who had been obese for ≤5 years” with “patients who had been obese for >15 years”. There is a misconception held by many that obesity is a cosmetic problem alone, but data like this prove that obesity affects far more than just appearance.
The main culprits of obesity, genetic factors aside, are calorie-rich foods (frequently containing large amounts of fructose) and sedentary lifestyles, both of which have become all but intrinsic parts of our world today. The best way to avoid obesity, though far from easy, is to avoid both things to as great of an extent as possible. It may be challenging to do, but if you enjoy the lung function you already have, you really ought to do it anyway.
Work Cited:
Santamaria, Francesca, Silvia Montella, Luigi Greco, Giuliana Valerio, Adriana Franzese, Mauro Maniscalco, Giuseppe Fiorentino, Diego Peroni, Angelo Pietrobelli, Sara De Stefano, Francesco Sperlì, and Attilio L. Boner. “Obesity Duration Is Associated to Pulmonary Function Impairment in Obese Subjects”. Obesity. 19 (2011): 1623-1628. Print.
