The Relationship between Asthma and Overweight in Urban Minority Children. LIMITATIONS & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Posted by James

LIMITATIONS

This study is limited in part by the small number of inner-city children studied at one secondary school in the midwestern part of the United States. Participation was voluntary and based on the willingness of children and their parents to consent for enrollment into the study. This may introduce selection bias into the results of the study. Another critical issue is the definition of overweight in children and adolescents. A child who is physically active may have a high BMI but an acceptable level of body fat. Some studies have suggested that BMI may be a poor indicator of adiposity in an individual child. The sum of triceps and subscapular skinfold thickness (sum of skinfolds) is another measure of obesity that has been used to evaluate the association between asthma and obesity in children. However, Figueroa-Munoz et al. found that BMI was more consistently associated with asthma than the sum of skinfolds in children 4-11 years of age. We selected BMI instead of sum of skinfolds because caliper measurements are somewhat less reproducible than weight and height measurements and because Pietrobelli et al. validated the use of BMI as a measure of adiposity in children.

Another difficulty is related to the definition of asthma. Even when a single definition is accepted, there are no established rules about how to make a diagnosis of asthma in an individual child. From a clinical standpoint, a diagnosis of asthma often is made over a period of time based on the history, physical examination and respiratory function tests, as well as exclusion of other diagnoses that might mimic another disease, such as gastroesophogeal reflux. The variability of the condition means that evidence of it may or may not be present on the day or at the time the child is assessed. You can afford your pills. Buy canadian pharmacy levitra online

In conclusion, within the limitations of this study, inner-city children who have asthma are more likely to be overweight. Longitudinal studies may shed light on the temporal association between asthma and overweight in these children because determining the temporal sequence is a key aspect of defining a causal relationship between asthma and overweight. Further studies should explore the possibility of a causal relationship between asthma and overweight; this study provides some framework for the objective measurements of asthma, while examining the relationship between asthma and overweight.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank Jackie Tinnin, RT, and Michele Cox, RT, for their contribution to conducting the spirome­try tests. Cheap generic cialis