Asthma Current Topics in Asthma

Asthma More Common in Diabetic People

(HealthCentersOnline) - Patients with type 2 diabetes are about 50 percent more likely than nondiabetics to have asthma, an analysis suggests.

Type 2 diabetes, by far the most common form of diabetes, impairs the body's ability to use glucose for energy. Asthma is a chronic inflammation of the airway, or bronchial, tissues.

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center reviewed medical records from veterans hospitals. They compared 293,124 patients with type 2 diabetes to a control group of 552,623 nondiabetics with high blood pressure. They adjusted for other factors such as smoking and heart disease.

The researchers found that 4.5 percent of the diabetic group and 2.9 percent of the control group had asthma. They suggested that physicians screen for asthma in diabetes patients with respiratory symptoms.

The study was presented last month at a conference of the American College of Chest Physicians and published online in the journal Chest.

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