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January 07, 2026
3 min read
Key takeaways:
- Fewer adolescents in the GLP-1 receptor agonist group vs. the control group experienced an acute asthma exacerbation.
- This was also the case when assessing systemic corticosteroid prescriptions.
Among adolescents with asthma and overweight or obesity, the relative risk for acute asthma exacerbations was significantly reduced with GLP-1 receptor agonist use vs. nonpharmacological weight management, according to study results.
These data were published in JAMA Network Open.
Data were derived from Huang YC, et al. JAMA Netw Open. 2025;doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.51611.
Lin-Shien Fu
“For everyday clinicians, the findings highlight a potential consideration for a subset of adolescents with obesity whose asthma is particularly difficult to control and for whom weight reduction remains challenging,” Lin-Shien Fu, MD, chief of pediatric nephrology and immunology at Taichung Veterans General Hospital, told Healio.
“While this was an early observational study, the results suggest that GLP-1 receptor agonists may offer an additional therapeutic consideration in this difficult-to-treat population and may help inform clinical decision-making in real-world practice,” Fu said.
Yung-Chieh Huang
In a retrospective cohort study, Fu, Yung-Chieh Huang, MD, and colleagues evaluated patients aged 12 to 18 years with asthma and overweight/obesity via Jan. 1, 2020, to July 1, 2025, data from the TriNetX global research network to determine how GLP-receptor agonist use impacts the risk for acute asthma exacerbations vs. nonpharmacological weight management interventions (control).
“The study was prompted by a real-world clinical need in our pediatric immunology practice at Taichung Veterans General Hospital,” Fu told Healio. “Two GLP-1 receptor agonists received U.S. FDA approval for use in adolescents aged 12 years and older in 2020 and again in late 2022, meaning that real-world data in this population are still relatively new.
“With the growing use of these agents, we aimed to examine early real-world outcomes over roughly 2 to 4 years of use and to explore whether treatment might be associated with asthma risk,” she continued.
Researchers used propensity scores to match the groups with each other based on baseline demographic characteristics, BMI categories, asthma severity proxies, prior use of asthma-related medications and prior use of diabetes-related medications.
This yielded a total of 1,070 adolescents (mean age, 15.8 years; 56.8% girls). The GLP-1 receptor agonist group comprised 535 adolescents, and the control group was made up of the remaining 535 adolescents.
Fewer patients in the GLP-1 receptor agonist group vs. the control group experienced an acute asthma exacerbation in the 12 months of follow-up (5.4% vs. 10.7%). Further, researchers reported that the relative risk for this outcome was significantly reduced among those using a GLP-1 receptor agonist (RR = 0.51; 95% CI, 0.33-0.78; P = .002).
Similar to above, a smaller proportion of adolescents in the GLP-1 receptor agonist group vs. the control group had inhaled short-acting beta-2 agonist use (32.3% vs. 44.7%), a systemic corticosteroid prescription (20.7% vs. 31.4%) and an asthma-related ED visit (1.5% vs. 3.6%).
For each of these outcomes, the relative risk was significantly lower among those using GLP-1 receptor agonists vs. nonpharmacological weight management interventions: inhaled short-acting beta-2 agonist use (RR = 0.72; 95% CI, 0.62-0.84; P < .001), a systemic corticosteroid prescription (RR = 0.66; 95% CI, 0.54-0.81; P < .001) and an asthma-related ED visit (RR = 0.42; 95% CI, 0.19-0.95; P = .04).
In contrast, researchers found that adolescents who had at least one exacerbation in the GLP-1 receptor agonist group had a comparable number of subsequent events over 12 months when compared with adolescents who had at least one exacerbation in the control group (mean, 1.83 vs. 2.02).
“The findings were not entirely unexpected. Prior studies in adults have suggested that GLP-1 receptor agonists may be associated with improved asthma control and a reduced risk of asthma-related outcomes,” Fu told Healio.
“However, because childhood asthma is predominantly driven by type 2 immune pathways and its pathophysiology differs from that of adult asthma, it remained important to examine whether similar associations would be observed in pediatric populations using real-world data,” Fu continued.
Moving forward, Fu and colleagues wrote that prospective randomized clinical trials are needed to confirm the findings from this study.
“Because this was an analysis based on the large TriNetX database, we were not able to precisely capture individual weight-loss outcomes in adolescents with obesity,” Fu told Healio.
“Future studies incorporating more detailed longitudinal weight data will be needed, and cohort studies or randomized controlled trials may help further clarify the underlying mechanisms and better define the clinical implications of GLP-1 receptor agonist use in this population,” Fu said.
For more information:
Lin-Shien Fu, MD, can be reached at linshienfu@gmail.com.
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