Allergic rhinitis in children with overweight/obesity: features of sensitization

Relevance. In the literature there are single works dedicated to the study of allergic rhinitis in children with overweight and obesity. The available information are conflicting and require further study.

Aim of study. To study the nature of sensitization to aeroallergens and the debut of allergic rhinitis in children with overweight/obesity.

Materials and methods. The study included 45 children with allergic rhinitis (AR) at the age of 4–8 years, who were monitored at the Smolensk Regional Center of Allergology and Immunology; the selection of children was carried out by the method of continuous sampling. The SDS criterion (body weight, kg / height, m) was used to assess body weight. The results were evaluated by the data of percentile tables and / or standard deviation scores depending on the child's age and gender differences.  Obesity  in  children  was  diagnosed  at  +2.0  SDS.  All  children  were  divided  into  3  groups: 1st — 22 children with normal body weight, 2nd — 13 children with SDS below normal and 3rd — 10 children with overweight/obesity. All children spent skin  scarification  allergy  tests  with  water-salt  extracts  of  house  dust  mites  (HDM) and pollen allergens (manufactured by JSC "Biomed"  Russia)  according  to  the  standard  method  Positive  results  of allergy tests to one allergen were considered as monosensitization, to two or more allergens — as polysensitization. The presence of positive allergy tests to non-closely related allergens (pollen, KDP) was considered as a combined sensitization [1]. Statistical working of the results was carried out using the statistical software package Microsoft Excel 7.0. The angular transformation test (Fisher's test) or the X² test (X-square) were used to compare the proportional indicators between the groups. The results were considered reliable at a significance level of p<0,05.

Results. We found as a result of research that overweight / obesity meets about 1/5 of children 4–8 years old with allergic rhinitis. The debut of allergic rhinitis did not depend on the child's body weight. Boys predominated in all groups of children with allergic rhinitis whatever of body weight. Hypersensitivity to house dust mite allergens is the leading cause of allergic rhinitis in children 4–8 years old in all weight categories (from 60,0% to 63,2%). Allergic rhinitis in children with overweight / obesity conditioned as 2,64 times often (p<0.05) by monosensitization to aeroallergens compared with children with normal SDS. Whereas children with normal body weight is recorded 2,05 times more often (p<0.05) the combined type of hypersensitivity.

Conclusion. Obesity meets in 1/5 of children 4–8 years old with allergic rhinitis. This factor did not affect the debut of allergic rhinitis, but influenced on the type of sensitization to aeroallergens.

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