A new study indicates that obese children and adolescents are at increased risk of having some kind of allergy, especially to a food.”We found a positive association between obesity and allergies,” said Darryl Zeldin, MD, senior author on the paper. The researchers analyzed data on children and young adults from a new national dataset designed to obtain information about allergies and asthma. “While the results from this study are interesting, they do not prove that obesity causes allergies. More research is needed to further investigate this potential link,” Dr. Zeldin adds.

Researchers analyzed data from 4,111 children and young adults aged 2 to 19 years of age. Obese children were about 26% more likely to have allergies than children of normal weight.

“The signal for allergies seemed to be coming mostly from food allergies. The rate of having a food allergy was 59% higher for obese children,” comments study co-author Stephanie London, MD.

Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology – May 2009:123;1163-69.

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