Duration: 2010-2014
Abstract: The project investigated how common environmental, family and socioeconomic risk factors for obesity, asthma and rhinitis modulate the association between these diseases and to study whether birth weight (BW) values differ between overweight children with asthma/rhinitis and children with asthma/rhinitis and normal weight. The study showed that childhood obesity and especially high body fat levels increase the risk of
asthma and rhinitis, which seemed to be independent of common risk factors. Obesity showed a stronger effect on asthma for girls than for boys. Results suggest that the overweight/obese asthmatics might already be born with a predisposition to this phenotype, which might indicate its prenatal origin. High level of asthma heterogeneity highlights the need for individualized, phenotype- or patient-specific prevention, intervention, and treatment strategies.
Coordinator (PI): Magdalena Muc (University of Liverpool)
Participants: Cristina Padez (CIAS), Anabela Mota Pinto (University of Coimbra)
Funding: Portuguese national funding agency for science, research and technology (FCT, Portugal)
Reference: SFRH/BD/66877/2009