Assessment of pulmonary function test and exercise capacity in obese patients

Introduction: Obesity, an important health problem with an increasing frequency, is the result of excessive accumulation of fat tissue in the body. Child obesity is also a concern for many complications due to the persistence of obesity in older ages. For this reason, early recognition of the obesity, prevention of its progression and treatment are very important in terms of preventing permanent damage that may occur in the future. Objective: In our study, not only the effects of obesity on respiratory function, effort capacity and such parameters as heart rate, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure looked in effort test, but also the change of pulmonary function after treadmill exercise were investigated. Materials and Methods: 50 obese children (25 girls, 25 boys) between the ages of 12 and 18 years in their puberty age having at least 2 years obesity history with a body mass index of 95-99 percentile according to age and gender and 50 healthy children (25 girls, 25 boys) with same features of obese ones as a control group were included in the study. Both groups had no chronic history of chronic disease such as hormonal, respiratory, hepatic, cardiovascular disease. Treadmill test was performed after initial pulmonary function test which was repeated within 5 minutes after this effort (exercise provocation). In addition, both groups were separated in terms of anthropometric parameters. PEF, FEV1, FVC, FEV1/FVC, FEF 25-75 parameters in pulmonary function test, heart rate, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure and grades were evaluated in Treadmill test. Results: There was no statistically significant difference in pre-exercise values of PEF, FEV1, FVC, FEF 25-75 and FEV1/FVC of both groups. However, there was a statistically significant increase between the PEF measurements of pre-exercise and post-exercise in both obese group and control group. The increase in FEF 25-75 and FEV1/FVC measurements of post-exercise was statistically significant compared to pre-exercise in obese group, whereas the same parameters of the control group between pre-exercise and post-exercise does not differ significantly. The increase in heart rate values after and before effort in both groups was found to be statistically significant. Moreover, the increase in systolic blood pressure measurements after and before effort in both groups was found to be statistically significant. Obese individuals were tired more quickly in the effort test and left the test earlier. The quitters at level 3 was higher in obese subjects while dropouts at levels 4 and 5 were higher in the control cases. When compared to the levels in the effort test, BMI and SDS values of BMI were found to be significantly different between groups. Level 3 was significantly higher than Levels 4 and 5 within the groups. Conclusion: We found that the most common simple (exogenous) obesity in children leads to some failures in the pulmonary function tests and in the effort test. In the effort test of obese patients, they were tired earlier than normal weight children, leaving the test earlier and finding that the effort capacities were lower. Repeated pulmonary function test results within 5 min after effort also showed minimal differences in the control group and we reached the conclusion that simple obesity did not significantly impair respiratory functions. In addition to this, obese patients should be monitored for a long time because of the possibility of obstructive/restrictive respiratory problems.