A doctoral thesis carried out by Dr. Noelia Álvarez at the School of Medicine of the University of Navarra has confirmed that obese children have a higher risk of developing asthma. According to the expert,high-calorie diets and a decrease in physical activity are the main causes of obesity, a pathology that increases the risk of suffering from asthma. Thus, the relationship between obesity and asthma is intensified in the female sex, with obese girls between 6 and 7 years of age being the most at risk of presenting this disease.

Specifically, "this population has up to almost five times the risk of presenting severe asthma and almost 4 times the risk of presenting exercise-induced asthma," explained the doctor. Furthermore, the relationship between obesity and asthma is intensified in the absence of eczema in infants, and in the absence of rhinoconjunctivitis and eczema in children and adolescents. "A fact to be taken into account since asthma is usually related to the presence of these pathologies". Finally, it has also been observed that in the case of boys, infants with excess body weight have a higher risk of wheezing, i.e., wheezing or whistling breath sounds.

All this has led in recent years to talk about an"obese-asthmatic" patient, subject , "who has asthma that is difficult to control, with frequent and severe exacerbations and greater resistance to treatment with corticosteroids". Thus, the specialist stressed the importance for pediatricians to know the characteristics of these patients for their appropriate treatment and to continue investigating "the mechanism and manifestations of asthma in this group".

The doctoral thesis , entitled"Obesity as a comorbidity factor of asthma in childhood and adolescence in the area metropolitan Pamplona", has been directed by Dr. Cristina Azcona and Dr. Francisco Guillén. Clínica Universidad de Navarra Cristina Azcona and Francisco Guillén and it has studied 9,694 children of the area metropolitan Pamplona based on the international programs of study ISAAC (International Study of Asthma and Allergy in Childhood) phase III and Infant Wheezing.