Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med., Volume 164, Number 11, December 2001, 2045-2050

Asthma Is Associated with Weight Gain in Females but Not Males, Independent of Physical Activity

WILLIAM S. BECKETT, DAVID R. JACOBS JR., XINHUA YU, CARLOS IRIBARREN, and O. DALE WILLIAMS

Pulmonary and Critical Care Division and Department of Environmental Medicine, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, New York; Division of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Institute for Nutrition Research, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; Division of Preventive Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama; and Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, California

We tested whether asthma diagnosis is associated with weight gain and physical activity in 4,547 18 to 30-yr-old African American and white men and women, followed prospectively for up to 10 yr. Baseline asthma was most frequent in African American men. Incident asthma was more frequent in women. Incident asthma was associated with highest and lowest baseline and change in body mass index (BMI), in a J-shaped curve, after adjustment for other factors. When stratified by sex, this association was seen only in females. Subjects on average decreased physical activity and gained weight over time, but there was no significant difference in asthma prevalence by physical activity at baseline or asthma incidence by change in physical activity. Cigarette smoking in females was significantly associated with asthma incidence, but serum cotinine level at baseline among nonsmokers (reflecting environmental tobacco smoke [ETS] exposure) was not significantly associated with asthma. We conclude that gain in BMI predisposes to new asthma diagnosis in female young adults, but decreased physical activity does not explain the association of weight gain with asthma.