BRI and BMI z score showed comparable discriminative performance in fully adjusted analyses
MONDAY, Aug. 24, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Among children and adolescents, higher body roundness index (BRI) is associated with increased odds of current asthma, according to a study published online Aug. 6 in the Annals of Human Biology.
Tingqiaonan Chen, from Jinhua Maternal and Child Health Care Hospital in China, and colleagues examined the association between BRI and asthma in children and adolescents using data from 28,789 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999 to 2020 participants aged 6 to 20 years. BRI was calculated from waist circumference and height.
The researchers observed an association for higher BRI with higher odds of current asthma (odds ratio, 1.233). A nonlinear association between BRI and current asthma was suggested in restricted cubic spline analysis. BRI and body mass index z score showed comparable discriminative performance in fully adjusted analyses, with no significant difference in the area under the curve.
“These findings suggest that central adiposity, as reflected by BRI, may be a relevant anthropometric correlate of pediatric asthma burden,” the authors write. “Given the cross-sectional design, causal interpretation is limited.”
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