A new study recently showed that treatment, specifically when taken in pill form, increased the risk of patients developing obesity.
Specifically, as specified in a HealthDay report, adults who are suffering from asthma frequently need to take corticosteroids "to open up their airways," although the medications may have an unintentional side effect.
According to Subhabrata Moitra, the lead researcher who's also a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, oral corticosteroids is frequently given to asthma patients, specifically "those who had a long history of asthma."
More so, these drugs were found to have a direct impact on the development of obesity among those asthmatic individuals.
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Researchers said patients who use inhaled corticosteroids were not at increased risk for obesity.
Increased Risk for Obesity
The lead researcher noted that patients who use inhaled corticosteroids were not at increased risk for obesity.
Frequently, oral corticosteroids are prescribed indiscriminately minus looking for other substitutes, added Moitra. That is one of the major reasons oral corticosteroids were a very essential risk factor for the development of obesity.
Doctors have a lot of substitutes for oral corticosteroids to control asthma, Moitra explained, including inhaled corticosteroids, as well as the new biologics.
Patients who are aware of what's triggering their asthma can avoid such triggers, as well. Some of them can be associated with work or exposure to tobacco smoke or air pollution, he continued.
Asthma and Obesity
Utilizing data from the European Community Respiratory Health Survey from 1990 to 2014 and with follow-ups roughly every 10 years on over 8,700 people.
Moitra and his team discovered that approximately 15 percent of the people without asthma turned obese, compared with almost 17 percent of those who have asthma.
After accounting for factors like asthma and smoking, those who have asthma had a 21-percent greater risk for obesity compared to those people who don't have asthma, the study authors discovered.
As indicated in a similar Drugs.com report, individuals who had asthma the longest had a 32-percent higher risk of turning obese compared to those who had asthma for the shortest period.
In their research published in the BMJ journals' Thorax, the scientists specified that for those who are using corticosteroids "the risk of obesity was 99-percent higher" when compared with people who are not using the said drugs.
Use of Corticosteroids
Once an individual has turned obese, discontinuing oral corticosteroids will not automatically lead to weight loss. More so, Moitra explained, obesity is making asthma more difficult to control.
Moitra said, even if one stops taking steroids but he does not change his lifestyle, does physical activity, or changes his diet, he doesn't think that's going to affect obesity.
This condition further worsens asthma, then a steroid is needed, or more other medication to control the symptoms. Therefore, it is actually a "feedback loop," elaborated the lead researcher.
One expert does not think that oral corticosteroids totally explain the reason adults with asthma are susceptible to obesity.
According to allergy and immunology physician, Dr. Sherry Farzan from Northwell Health in Great Neck, New York, the link between obesity and asthma "has been well-established, in that obesity, not just increases the risk of developing asthma but increases the severity as well, making the condition more difficult to control. It decreases the efficacy of standard medication, as well.
Related information about the link between obesity and asthma is shown on UCLA Health's YouTube video below:
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