Background: It has been long established that body composition affects pulmonary function but little attention has been given to assessing lung function in healthy adolescents and determining the influence of body composition on these variables.
Methods: We measured 399 boys (mean age 16.7 ± 1.2 years) and 46 girls (mean age 17.1 ± 1.2 years). We used multi-frequency segmental bioimpedance analyzer Tanita MC 980-MA Plus for body composition parameters and Micro Direct MicroGP Spirometer MS07 for spirometry parameters.
Results: Mean body height was 179.5 cm and mean body mass index was 22.5 kg/m2 in boys. In girls, mean body height was 166.9 cm and body mass index was 22.5 kg/m2 . After adjusting for age, body height, bodyweight, and smoking status, we found a significant (P = 0.01) association (β = 0.35-0.43) between forced vital capacity and fat-free mass (FFM) or trunk fat-free mass only in boys. Similarly, body fat mass (BFM) showed significant (P = 0.01) negative association (β = -0.29 to -0.20) with spirometry parameters only in boys. In girls, the results showed a similar trend but it was not significant.
Conclusions: In conclusion, FFM or trunk FFM is more closely related to lung capacity than BFM or trunk BFM after adjustment for confounding variables in healthy adolescent boys. Body height explained up to 23% variability of forced vital capacity and fat-free mass explained up to 27% in a linear regression model.
Keywords: adolescents; body composition; fat mass; fat-free mass; spirometry.
© 2022 Japan Pediatric Society.