Adipose-Lung Cell Crosstalk in the Obesity-ARDS Paradox

Obesity is an increasingly frequent condition associated with increased adipose, systemic and pulmonary inflammation.There is an emerging and unexpected finding that obese individuals may not be at a greater risk for ARDS and, indeed, may even be partially protected against ARDS.This finding is known as the Obesity-ARDS Paradox.In this review we discuss the observations regarding this intriguing phenomenon and begin to elaborate on the theoretical rationale that obesity-triggered low-grade inflammatory processes may constitute pre-conditioning insults or trigger anti-inflammatory adaptive mechanisms that confer protection against ARDS.