Future treatments for breathing disorder may focus on this discovery
New research suggests a hormone released from fat tissue is critical in the development of obesity-related asthma and may be a target of future treatments for the disease. The findings were presented at last week’s ENDO 2019, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in New Orleans, LA.
Scientists do not understand how obesity contributes to asthma, but studies have shown that obesity can affect the course of asthma. An estimated 40 percent of people with asthma have obesity.
“There is a great unmet need for novel treatments for obesity-related asthma because these patients are less responsive to current therapies,” said lead researcher M. Furkan Burak, MD, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA.
The hormone aP2 increases in the circulation of people with obesity. The hormone previously has been shown to contribute to chronic inflammatory diseases associated with obesity, such as diabetes and heart disease. In previous research, the investigators detected increased aP2 levels in blood and lung fluid in mice with obesity.
Researchers in this study found aP2 increased by more than 25 percent in people affected by asthma who were overweight or obese when compared to people without asthma.
SOURCE: Science Daily
