The findings appear in an issue of the European Respiratory Journal.

From News-medical.net:

Researchers looked at data from four previous multi-center, randomized clinical trials from 3,073 patients with moderate asthma. The data included the patients’ responses to Singulair/montelukast, a beclomethasone inhaled steroid and a placebo, and the participants’ body mass index numbers, which placed them in the categories of normal, overweight and obese.

In general, the severity of people’s asthma was found to be greater among those in the overweight and obese groups, which supports findings from other studies.

In addition, the inhaled steroid was found to be better than Singulair at increasing the number of asthma control days (ACD) among people in the normal weight category. An ACD is defined as a day with no more than two puffs of an inhaler, no night-time awakenings and no asthma attacks.

According to lead author Marc Peters-Golden, M.D., professor of internal medicine and director of the Fellowship Program in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School, there is no evidence highlighting that response of people to specific asthma medications are influenced by obesity.

Inflammation measures were found to be considerably better for patients with hay fever and administered with fluticasone propionate than the combination of two anti-allergy drugs, according to Robert Naclerio, M.D., professor of surgery at the University of Chicago and director of the study.

The study was presented at the 58th annual meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

From News.Bio-Medicine.Org:

“Because of the effect on inflammation, we prefer fluticasone,” he added, “but for patients, the choice may come down to cost and whether they would prefer a pill or a spray.”

Since one out of five people in the United States suffers from seasonal allergies, such preferences have financial implications. Antihistamines are prescribed three times as often, even though intranasal corticosteroids are less expensive than the non-sedating antihistamines. Combining loratidine with montelukast increases the cost difference.

A daily dose of Claritin, the leading antihistamine, costs $2.92 at the University of Chicago Hospitals pharmacy. Singulair, which works by blocking leukotrienes — substances that trigger inflammation — costs $4 per day. Flonase, the leading prescription nasal spray, costs $2.21 per day.

It was suggested during the study that use of nasal sprays result in less of patients’ nasal passages and those administered with steroid nasal sprays displayed signs of minimal side effects and lower levels of eosinophil cationic protein, an inflammation sign. It was remarked by Naclerio that fluticasone truly shows its worth because of its unmatched benefits and low cost.