Australian researchers say their discovery that fatty tissue accumulates in the lungs provides a fresh clue to the link between asthma and having obesity.

They say their study shows for the first time that adipose tissue accumulates in the walls of the airways, and that the amount increases in line with increasing body mass index (BMI).

“These data show that adipose tissue is present within the airway wall, and is related to BMI, wall thickness and the number of inflammatory cells,” the WA authors wrote in the European Respiratory Journal. 

They studied post-mortem lung samples from 52 people, including 15 who had no reported asthma, 21 who had a history of asthma but who died of other causes, and 16 cases of fatal asthma.