DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2016.v04i07.051

Pages: 2548-2552

Obesity is a multi-factorial disease leading to social, psychological and medical problems. Obesity is reaching epidemic proportions in South India especially in Tamil nadu about 21.5% in males and 30.7% in females. There is paucity of large scale epidemiological studies in pulmonary function data in obese population from south India. The objective to evaluate the effects of obesity on the pulmonary function in selected obese population in Chennai. This cross sectional study included 284 subjects in which 203 were males and 81 were females belonging to Chennai Metropolitan area. After getting a relevant Medical history and clinical examination of respiratory system. Pulmonary functions were performed on all subjects using standard spirometer ((MIR SPIROBANK – Model A 23). The statistical analysis consisted of parametric or non-parametric tests, depending on the distribution of each variable, considering p < 0.05 to be statistically significant. Pulmonary function variables were significantly higher in normal population (FVC (4.01±0.6), FEV1 (3.26±0.4) and PEF (3.26±0.4)), when compared to obese (FVC (3.05±0.9), FEV1 (2.97±0.7) and PEF (6.66±1.6)) category in both male and female population. Males had significantly higher pulmonary functions than females. Pulmonary functions of males and females decreased as the BMI, fat mass increased, whereas increased with increase in fat free mass.