RESEARCH ARTICLE


Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension and Obesity†



Wendell H. Williams III1, Robert E. Safford2, Michael G. Heckman3, Julia E. Crook3, Charles D. Burger*, 1
1 From the Division of Pulmonary Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida, USA
2 Division of Cardiovascular Diseases, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida, USA
3 Biostatistics Unit, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida, USA

Article Information


Identifiers and Pagination:

Year: 2010
Volume: 2
First Page: 132
Last Page: 136
Publisher Id: TOOBESJ-2-132
DOI: 10.2174/1876823701002010132

Article History:

Received Date: 05/01/2010
Revision Received Date: 16/06/2010
Acceptance Date: 18/06/2010
Electronic publication date: 23/9/2010
Collection year: 2010

© 2010 Williams III et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Division of Pulmonary Medicine, Mayo Clinic, 4500 San Pablo Road, Jacksonville, FL 32224, USA; Tel: (904) 953-2381; Fax: (904) 953-2082; E-mail: burger.charles@mayo.edu
† Portions of this manuscript have been published in abstract form by the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 2007.


Abstract

Purpose:

To examine the association between obesity and pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Methods: This retrospective case-control study consisted of patients with PAH (N=207) and controls seen at a pulmonary clinic for reasons other than PAH (N=965). All patients were evaluated between 1992 and 2006 at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. Obesity was defined as body mass index (BMI) of 30 kg/m2 or higher; class II obesity was defined as a BMI between 35.0 and 39.9 kg/m2, and class III obesity was defined as a BMI of 40.0 kg/m2 or higher.

Results:

Obesity was present in 63 patients with PAH (30%) and 290 controls (30%). Class II or III obesity was present in 34 patients with PAH (16%) and 103 controls (11%), while class III obesity was present in 16 patients with PAH (8%) and 36 controls (4%). After adjustment for age, sex, and thyroid disease in logistic regression analysis, an association between obesity and PAH was not evident (odds ratio [OR], 0.97; P=.87), however non-statistically significant trends were observed toward an association between PAH and class II or III obesity (OR, 1.40; P=.14) and class III obesity (OR, 1.70; P=.11).

Conclusions:

Our findings do not indicate an association between PAH and obesity in WHO diagnostic group 1 patients. However trends were observed toward more severe class II and III obesity in PAH patients compared to controls, and this requires further study in larger samples.

Keywords: Body mass index, obesity, prevalence, pulmonary arterial hypertension.