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Review
. 2022 May 18:15:673-689.
doi: 10.2147/JAA.S285738. eCollection 2022.

Clinical Characteristics and Management Strategies for Adult Obese Asthma Patients

Sherry Farzan  1   2   3   4 , Tyrone Coyle  1   2   3 , Gina Coscia  1   2   3 , Andre Rebaza  2   5 , Maria Santiago  2   5
Affiliations
Review

Clinical Characteristics and Management Strategies for Adult Obese Asthma Patients

Sherry Farzan et al. J Asthma Allergy. .

Abstract

The rates of asthma and obesity are increasing concurrently in the United States. Epidemiologic studies demonstrate that the incidence of asthma increases with obesity. Furthermore, obese individuals have asthma that is more severe, harder to control, and resistant to standard medications. In fact, specific asthma-obesity phenotypes have been identified. Various pathophysiologic mechanisms, including mechanical, inflammatory, metabolic and microbiome-associated, are at play in promulgating the obese-asthma phenotypes. While standard asthma medications, such as inhaled corticosteroids and biologics, are currently used to treat obese asthmatics, they may have limited effectiveness. Targeting the underlying aberrant processes, such as addressing steroid resistance, microbiome, metabolic and weight loss approaches, may be helpful.

Keywords: BMI; asthma; body mass index; obesity.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

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