1Department of Physiology, Sports and Exercise Physiology Lablratory, University of Calcutta, University College of Science and Technology, Kolkata, India
American Journal of Sports Science and Medicine.
2014,
Vol. 2 No. 1, 21-26
DOI: 10.12691/ajssm-2-1-4
Copyright © 2014 Science and Education PublishingCite this paper: Basuli Goswami, Anindita Singha Roy, Rishna Dalui, Amit Bandyopadhyay. Peak Expiratory Flow Rate – A Consistent Marker of Respiratory Illness Associated with Childhood Obesity.
American Journal of Sports Science and Medicine. 2014; 2(1):21-26. doi: 10.12691/ajssm-2-1-4.
Correspondence to: Amit Bandyopadhyay, Department of Physiology, Sports and Exercise Physiology Lablratory, University of Calcutta, University College of Science and Technology, Kolkata, India. Email:
bamit74@yahoo.co.inAbstract
Childhood obesity is a prevalent global health problem that leads to onset of serious health problems. One of such major health problems is respitarory disorders induced by obesity especially in childhood. Peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) is a convenient tool for quantitative and qualitative estimation of pulmonary function, which can easily be measured by peak flow meter. Present review has been focused to find out the applicability of PEFR as a marker of childhood obesity induced respiratory complications. Several studies revealed that obesity has strong association with PEFR that was significantly lower in individuals with obesity. Such association was attributed to the increased airway resistance and respiratory muscle dysfunction as a result of excess fat deposition. BMI, a good predictor of obesity also exhibited significant correlated with spirometric variables, e.g., FEV1, FVC, PEFR, etc. Waist to hip ratio has also been found to be an alternative of BMI for prediction of PEFR. Researchers hypothesised that fat accumulation over the chest wall reduces the PEFR mostly among all the pulmonary function indices and negative correlation was observed between pulmonary function parameters and visceral adiposity that in turn establishes that visceral fat deposition negatively affects the pulmonary activities and affects airway hyper responsiveness (AHR) in asthmatic and non-asthmatic children. Evidences further suggest that obesity causes asthma in children. It may further be hypothesized that PEFR is a good marker to diagnose the pulmonary disorders originated as a result of obesity that in turn may be evaluated from BMI or waist to hip ratio.
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