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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Nutr.
Sec. Clinical Nutrition
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnut.2025.1516003
The J-shaped relationship between Body Roundness Index and adult asthma: insights from NHANES 2001-2018
Provisionally accepted- 1 Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, China
- 2 Department of General Medicine, First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, China, Changchun, Hebei Province, China
Background: Many studies have used Body Mass Index (BMI) to define obesity and examine its potential link to adult asthma. However, BMI overlooks body fat distribution, which may significantly impact health. Unlike BMI, the Body Roundness Index (BRI) can more accurately reflect body fat distribution. Therefore, this study examined BRI's relationship with asthma prevalence in U.S. adults.: This study was based on data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) between 2001 and 2018 and covered 40,052 adult participants. Participants were categorized into four quartile groups based on their BRI levels: Quartile 1 (1.05,3.80); Quartile 2 (3.80,5.06); Quartile 3 (5.06,6.61); Quartile 4(6.61,23.48). The association between BRI and asthma prevalence was assessed via weighted multivariate logistic regression, smoothed curve fitting, threshold effects, subgroup, and sensitivity analysis. BRI's predictive power was compared to BMI and waist circumference using z-scores.Results: Of the study population, 5605 participants had asthma (13.99% prevalence). After adjusting for possible confounders, the results showed that higher BRI was linked to greater asthma prevalence (OR=1.41, 95% CI:1.27,1.56, p<0.0001). A J-shaped relationship between BRI and asthma prevalence (p-nonlinearity = 0) was found, with asthma prevalence rising significantly when BRI surpassed 4.34. BRI outperformed BMI and waist circumference in predicting asthma (BRI: OR = 1.180; BMI: OR =1.169; W.C.: OR =1.166). Subgroup and sensitivity analyses confirmed our results' robustness.Adult asthma prevalence increases with increasing BRI levels, showing a J-shaped relationship. Keeping BRI under 4.34 is vital for lowering asthma prevalence, especially for overweight or obese individuals. In addition, BRI outperformed BMI and waist circumference in predicting asthma occurrence.
Keywords: Asthma prevalence, Body Roundness Index (BRI), Obesity, Cross-sectional study, NHANES
Received: 23 Oct 2024; Accepted: 10 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Sun, Chang, Jie, Wang and Gu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Yue Gu, Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, China
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