Systemic inflammation and lung function impairment in morbidly obese subjects with the metabolic syndrome

Background. obesity and asthma are associated. there is a relationship between lung function impairment and the metabolic syndrome. whether this relationship also exists in the morbidly obese patients is still unknown. hypothesis. low-grade systemic inflammation associated with the metabolic syndrome causes inflammation in the lungs and,hence,lung function impairment. methods. this is cross-sectional study of morbidly obese patients undergoing preoperative screening for bariatric surgery. metabolic syndrome was assessed according to the revised ncep-atp iii criteria. results. a total of 452 patients were included. patients with the metabolic syndrome (n = 293) had significantly higher blood monocyte (mean 5.3 versus 4.9,p = 0.044) and eosinophil percentages (median 1.0 versus 0.8,p = 0.002),while the total leukocyte count did not differ between the groups. the fevfvc ratio was significantly lower in patients with the metabolic syndrome (76.7% versus 78.2%,p = 0.032). blood eosinophils were associated with fevfvc ratio (adj. b -0.113,p = 0.018). conclusion. although the difference in fevfvc ratio between the groups is relatively small,in this cross-sectional study,and its clinical relevance may be limited,these data indicate that the presence of the metabolic syndrome may influence lung function impairment,through the induction of relative eosinophilia. © 2013 astrid van huisstede et al.