ArticleJournal of thoracic disease2017
The link between tuberculosis and body mass index.
Article in Journal of thoracic disease, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 49 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prevalence of bronchiectasis in adults: a meta-analysis.BMC public health · 2024Pooled it
- Trial
- Association Between Body Mass Index and Oral Health Status Among Children: A Cross-Sectional Study Contributing to Policy-Driven Improvements in Children's Oral Health.International journal of dentistry · 2026Article
- Lack of weight gain and increased mortality during and after treatment among adults with drug-resistant tuberculosis: a retrospective cohort study in Georgia, 2009-2020.ERJ open research · 2025Article
- Article
- Effects of diabetes mellitus on retreatment of Tuberculosis: A multi-centered case-control study from Bangladesh.Journal of clinical tuberculosis and other mycobacterial diseases · 2024Article
- Colliding Challenges: An Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Patients with Pulmonary Tuberculosis versus SARS-CoV-2 Infection Alone.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2024Article
- Diets Differently Regulate Pulmonary Pathogenesis and Immune Signaling in Mice during Acute and ChronicLife (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Prevalence and Predictors of Pulmonary Tuberculosis among Prison Inmates in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Tuberculosis research and treatment · 2023Article
- Discovery of serum biomarkers for diagnosis of tuberculosis by NMR metabolomics including cross-validation with a second cohort.Biomedical journal · 2022Article
- Factors Associated with Emergency Department Visits and Consequent Hospitalization and Death in Korea Using a Population-Based National Health Database.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Female Reproductive Factors and the Risk of Bronchiectasis: A Nationwide Population-Based Longitudinal Study.Biomedicines · 2022Article
- Risk factors associated with tuberculosis recurrence in South Korea determined using a nationwide cohort study.PloS one · 2022Article
- Missed Tuberculosis Investigations and Associated Factors in Patients with Symptoms Indicative of Tuberculosis at Public Health Institutions in Northwest Ethiopia: The Application of a Negative Binomial Model.Infection and drug resistance · 2022Article
- Being Underweight Increases the Risk of Non-Cystic Fibrosis Bronchiectasis in the Young Population: A Nationwide Population-Based Study.Nutrients · 2021Article
- Changes in Nutritional Status in Pulmonary Tuberculosis: Longitudinal Changes in BMI According to Acid-Fast Bacilli Smear Positivity.Journal of clinical medicine · 2020Article
- Article
- Detection ofAAS open research · 2020Article
- Intrinsic and extrinsic factors associated with sputum characteristics of presumed tuberculosis patients.PloS one · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The evidence behind the strong correlation between reactivation of tuberculosis (TB) and low body mass index (BMI) was reviewed. This strong association between TB and BMI occurred only with pulmonary TB and not extra-pulmonary TB, indicating that a low-BMI body build may in some way predispose to TB reactivation in the lungs. A possible explanation may be the congenital apical lung bullae that occur in 15% of the population and are likely to enlarge in young low-BMI males since biomechanical modeling of pleural stress has shown a massive 40x increase in apical pleural stress in low antero-posterior (AP) diameter chests associated with a low-BMI build. This suggests that pre-existing lung cavities may predispose to TB reactivation instead of current thinking that cavitation occurs after reactivation. Supporting this hypothesis is the relatively common incidence of both TB and primary spontaneous pneumothorax (PSP) occurring simultaneously. Furthermore, this hypothesis also gives a potential explanation for the apical location of secondary TB in the lower lobe as the conventional explanations of high apical oxygen levels and gravity appear to be invalid for the lower lobe. This opens up the possibility of a clinical trial that low-dose computerized tomography (CT) may be used to screen for the presence of subclinical apical bullae in low-BMI, high TB risk cohorts.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.