Chest
Original ResearchSleep MedicineSleep-Disordered Breathing, Obesity, and Airway Inflammation in Children and Adolescents
Section snippets
Study Population
Consecutive overweight or obese children and adolescents aged 6 to 17 years were recruited between March 2005 and October 2007 at the Pediatric Obesity Clinic of the Antwerp University Hospital. Normal-weight children were also recruited as part of a previously published study23 regarding normative data on SDB in children and adolescents. The exclusion criteria were a history of asthma, chronic lung disease, neuromuscular disease, laryngomalacia, any genetic or craniofacial syndrome, and the
Patient Characteristics
Subject characteristics are presented in Table 1. The study population included 13 normal-weight children, 17 overweight children with normal sleep study findings, 7 overweight children with habitual snoring, and 11 overweight children with OSAS.
Overweight children with habitual snoring had a significantly lower FEV1, FEV1/vital capacity (VC) ratio, and maximal expiratory flow at 50% (MEF50) than their overweight peers with normal polysomnography findings. Only one subject in the habitual
Discussion
In the present study, we illustrated that both habitual snoring and OSAS are associated with increased airway inflammation, as assessed by higher eNO level, in overweight children and adolescents without asthma or atopy. Furthermore, we could demonstrate that childhood obesity as such is not associated with increased airway inflammation.
Our present study using eNO levels confirmed previous reports12, 13 using other techniques that SDB in children is associated with increased airway
Acknowledgment
The authors thank the staff of the Lung Function Laboratory of Antwerp University Hospital for obtaining the lung function and eNO measurements for this study.
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The authors have reported to the ACCP that no significant conflicts of interest exist with any companies/organizations whose products or services may be discussed in this article.
Reproduction of this article is prohibited without written permission from the American College of Chest Physicians (www.chestjournal.org/misc/reprints.shtml).