Effects of regular exercise on asthma control in young adults

ABSTRACT

Background: According to our systematic literature review, no previous study has assessed potential effects of regular exercise on asthma control among young adults. We hypothesized that regular exercise improves asthma control among young adults. Methods: We studied 162 subjects with current asthma recruited from a population-based cohort study of 1,623 young adults 20–27 years of age. Asthma control was assessed by the occurrence of asthma-related symptoms, including wheezing, shortness of breath, cough, and phlegm production, during the past 12 months. Asthma symptom score was calculated based on reported frequencies of these symptoms (range: 0–12). Exercise was assessed as hours/week. Results: In Poisson regression, adjusting for gender, age, smoking, environmental tobacco smoke exposure, and education, the asthma symptom score reduced by 0.09 points per 1 hour of exercise/week (95% CI: 0.00 to 0.17). Applying the “Low exercise” quartile as the reference, “Medium exercise” reduced the asthma symptom score by 0.66 (−0.39 to 1.72), and “High exercise” reduced it significantly by 1.13 (0.03 to 2.22). The effect was strongest among overweight subjects. Conclusions: Our results provide new evidence that regular exercising among young adults improves their asthma control. Thus, advising about exercise should be included as an important part of asthma self-management in clinical practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Asthma
• asthma control
• regular exercise
• young adults

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Funding

This study was supported by research grants by the Academy of Finland Grants No. 129419 (SALVE Research Program), No. 138691, and No. 266314, and by research grants from the Foundation of the Finnish Anti-Tuberculosis Association, the Research Foundation of the Pulmonary Diseases, Jalmari and Rauha Ahokas Foundation, Väinö and Laina Kivi Foundation, Ida Montin Foundation, the Oulu University Hospital, the Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation, and the University of Oulu.