Acute pulmonary function response to ozone in young adults as a function of body mass index.

Recent studies have shown enhanced responsiveness to ozone in obese mice. Adiposity has not been examined as a possible modulator of ozone response in humans. We therefore examined the relationship between body mass index and the acute spirometric response to ozone (O(3)) exposure among 197 nonasthmatic young adults (aged 18-35 yr) studied in our human exposure facility from 1992 to 1998.

Distribution and reproducibility of spirometric response to ozone by gender and age.

Subjects were healthy nonsmoking men (n = 146) and women (n = 94) 18-60 yr old. Initially, each subject was exposed for 1.5 h to 0.