• Eun Joo Lee, Kwang Ho In, Eun Sil Ha, Kyung Ju Lee, Gyu Young Hur, Eun Hae Kang, Ki Hwan Jung, Sung Yong Lee, Je Hyeong Kim, Sang Yeub Lee, Chol Shin, Jae Jeong Shim, Kyung Ho Kang, and Se Hwa Yoo.
• Division of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Korea University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
• J Asthma. 2009 May 1; 46 (4): 339-42.

BackgroundThe prevalence of obesity and asthma has been increasing during the last several decades. Obesity has been reported to be associated with asthma. Obesity, especially abdominal obesity, is the main component of the metabolic syndrome.ObjectivesWe thus hypothesized that metabolic syndrome is an important contributing factor for the development of asthma-like symptoms.MethodsThe Korean Health and Genome Study started in 2001 as an ongoing population-based study of Korean adults 40 to 69 years of age. The prevalence of asthma-like symptoms in the previous 12 months was obtained by a questionnaire, and spirometric testing was conducted.ResultsAmong the 10,038 participants, the data from 9,942 individuals (4,716 men and 5,226 women) was available. Asthma-like symptoms (wheeze [p = 0.0006], resting dyspnea [p = 0.0062], and post-exercise dyspnea [p < 0.0001]) were increased in the subjects of the metabolic syndrome group. Subjects with asthma-like symptoms had a decreased lung function compared to subjects without asthma-like symptoms. Among the components of the metabolic syndrome, abdominal obesity and hypertension were the risk factors for asthma-like symptoms.ConclusionsMetabolic syndrome is associated with asthma-like symptoms. Among the components of metabolic syndrome, abdominal obesity and hypertension are the risk factors for asthma-like symptoms.

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