Association between C-reactive protein and pulmonary function in postmenopausal women

Objectives: The objective of this study is to investigate the association of CRP and impaired pulmonary function in postmenopausal women. Methods: The study was carried out in Gangnam Severance Hospital in Korea between March 2006 and October 2008. A total of 5978 healthy women subjects (age range, 20-75 years) were recruited from Seoul. We performed a cross-sectional study to evaluate the association of CRP with impaired pulmonary function, especially the restrictive pattern in 1555 nonsmoking postmenopausal women. We evaluated CRP as a categorical variable and constructed three groups (a very low risk group, CRP < 0.5 mg/dl; a low risk group, 0.5-1.0 mg/dl; a medium and high risk group, 1.0-10.0 mg/dl). The odds ratios (ORs) for a low FVC were calculated across all three groups. Results: CRP levels are negatively associated with forced expiratory volume (FEV₁)/forced vital capacity (FVC) and FVC after adjustment for confounding variables. The adjusted ORs (95% CIs) for a low FVC according to three groups were 1.00 (reference), 2.08 (1.03-4.20), and 2.55 (1.31-4.98) in postmenopausal women after adjusting for confounding variables. Conclusions: In summary, increased C-reactive protein (CRP) levels are strongly and independently associated with impaired pulmonary function and more frequent a low FVC in postmenopausal women.