Effects Of Obesity On Pulmonary Function In Adult Women

Objective：To compare the differences among normal weight、overweight and obesemiddle-aged women in the pulmonary function, and to assess the impact of obesity onpulmonary function.Methods：Through questionnaire and physical examinations,850non-smoking women,aged30-70years old,, were selected randomly from Huangqi Peninsula, LianjiangCounty, Fuzhou city, Fujian province, in October2011. Height, weight, waistcircumference (WC), BMI, blood pressure and pulmonary function were measured. Allsubjects were divided into four groups: underweight, normal weight, overweight,obesity, according to the BMI level from th《eGuidance on the prevention and control ofoverweight and obesity in China’s adults》; or into two groups: abdominal obesity、non-abdominal obesity according to the WC. Covariance analysis and multipleregression analysis were used to to assess the impact of obesity on pulmonary function.Results: Of the850nonsmoking women,35were low weight(4.1%),463were normalweight(54.5%),262were overweight(30.8%),90were obesity(10.6%);341wereabdominal obesity (40.1%),509were non-abdominal obesity (59.9%).When comparethe lung function variables, we found that the forced vital capacity (FVC) and forcedexpiratory volume in1s (FEV1) in the obesity group were worse than the normalweight group(P:0.013and0.007). But the PEF in the overweight and obesity group wasbetter than the low weight (P:0.029，0.017）and normal weight group (P:0.033,0.032).And we can find the same result between the abdominal obesity group andnon-abdominal obesity group: the FVC （F：4.666，P：0.031）and FEV1（F：4.327，P：0.038）in the former group were worse than the latter group. After the multipleregression analysis was used to test the joint effects of independent variables (age,height, weight and waist circumference) on lung function variables, we found that ageand waist circumference is negatively and consistently associated with FVC and FEV1.Conclusion: These results indicate that the influence of obesity on lung function in healthy subjects is mostly on pulmonary ventilation function. The FVC and FEV1inthe obesity group were worse than the normal weight group, the FVC and FEV1in theabdominal obesity group were worse than the non-abdominal obesity group too. Whatmore, FVC, FEV1decreased with the increase of age and waist circumference.