Obesità e funzione respiratoria negli studi di popolazione

Obesity and overweight are a major public health problem that causes nearly 3 million deaths worldwide each year. In addition to being an important risk factor for mortality and morbidity from cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes mellitus and cancer, obesity is associated with respiratory diseases with high epidemiological and clinical impact, such as bronchial asthma, COPD and obstructive sleep apnea syndrome. The effects of body weight and obesity on respiratory function have been also assessed in longitudinal studies on Italian population samples. In these studies it has been shown that BMI is a predictor of lung function along with age and height, BMI changes affect lung function decline, and reduction of body weight is associated with an increase in respiratory function. Moreover, there is increasing evidence that abdominal obesity in particular is involved, even through mechanisms of systemic infammation, with the impairment of respiratory function, which therefore might represent a link between cardiovascular risk factors and mortality.