Obese individuals diagnosed with COPD who engaged in a weight loss and exercise training program appeared to have improvements in other comorbidities.

For example, the obese COPD patients who lost an average of 6.4 kg (14 lbs) in the 12-week program showed improvements in mental health, blood pressure, lipids, and type 2 diabetes, reported Netsanet Negewo, a PhD candidate at Priority Researcher Centre for Healthy Lungs and Hunter Medical Research Institute at the University of Newcastle in Australia, and colleagues.

“This novel work, which addressed the unexplored but otherwise highly important area of managing comorbidities in COPD, has demonstrated the potential for generalized management of comorbidities in COPD by targeting a single comorbidity, Negewo told MedPage Today at her poster presentation at the European Respiratory Society International Congress.

Negewo’s group and colleagues evaluated outcomes in 28 individuals enrolled in a clinical trial on the effect of diet and resistance exercise training on obese COPD patients. The current authors focused on how these obese patients — with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 kg/m2 to 40 kg/m2 — fared after undergoing an intensive diet restriction and exercise training program.

In the original trial, patients underwent a 1- week weight reduction program that include meal replacements, dietary counseling by a dietitian, and resistance exercise training prescribed and supervised by a physiotherapist.

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