HHS HealthBeat (July 03, 2007)

Heavy breathing

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Being heavy adds a lot of health burdens. And for people with asthma, one burden seems to be worse asthma.

Brian Taylor of Emory Crawford Long Hospital in Atlanta looked at data from the National Asthma Survey of more than 3,000 people. His study was presented at the American Thoracic Society International Conference.

Taylor says obese patients had a range of problems:

``For example, obese patients were more likely to report continuous symptoms over the last 30 days. Obese patients were more likely to have at least one emergency room visit because of their asthma in the last year.’’ (11 seconds)

And he says they were 52 percent more likely to have severe persistent asthma than were people with normal weight.

Taylor says it’s another reason for people with asthma to keep their weight under control.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

Last revised: July, 03 2007