Obesity associated with increased incidence of allergy

Monday, 15 November 2010 09:20

Obesity has been found to be associated with allergy in adults living in the USA. The research also looked at whether allergy and insulin resistance were associated but found no significant relationship.

The data used in this study were from the 2005-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Asthma was defined by self-report of ever receiving a diagnosis and still having asthma at the time of the survey, while atopy was defined by any positive specific serum IgE responses to a panel of aeroallergens.

Neither obesity nor insulin resistance was associated with atopy. Obesity was positively associated with asthma overall and remained independently associated with asthma after controlling for insulin resistance.

Reference: Ma et al. 2010. Allergy Vol 65. pp. 1455-1463.