Mon May 4, 2009 1:48pm EDT
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Obese children and adolescents are 26 percent more likely to have some kind of allergy, especially to food, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
They said it is not clear from the study if obesity causes allergies, but it suggests controlling obesity in young people may be important for lowering rates of childhood allergies and asthma.
“We found a positive association between obesity and allergies,” said Dr. Darryl Zeldin, acting clinical director at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences or NIEHS, whose study appears in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
“The signal for allergies seemed to be coming mostly from food allergies. The rate of having a food allergy was 59 percent higher for obese children,” Dr. Stephanie London, a researcher at NIEHS, said in a statement…

HealthDay By Robert Preidt Friday, July 31, 2009
FRIDAY, July 31 (HealthDay News) — In the last 25 years, rates of severe childhood obesity in the United States have tripled, putting increasing numbers of children at risk for diabetes and heart disease, says a new study.