Dr. Mercola November 08 2005 5,710 views
Even though exercise can trigger asthma attacks, a review of studies on the subject shows that asthmatics benefit from exercise on the whole, as it improves their cardiopulmonary fitness.
Asthmatics who exercised regularly showed improvement in:
Exercise showed no significant effect in other measures such as expiratory air-flow rate, expiratory volume, and days of wheezing. There was no evidence suggesting that regular exercise worsens asthmatic symptoms.
The review examined 13 studies, involving more that 450 total participants. It may be advisable for asthmatics to seek counseling on ways to prevent and treat exercise-induced asthma.
Just no way around it, exercise is vital to your long-term health program. We simply all need to exercise and if we don't we are asking for trouble. Exercise affects just about every area of your life and can radically improve conditions you had no idea it would influence, like cancer and as this study shows, asthma.
This study illustates another important characteristic of exercise in that it is best viewed like a drug that needs to be precisely prescribed to achieve maximum benefits. Most people believe, however, if they merely invest some time, somehow exercise will magically give them all the benefits they're seeking.
To achieve the incredible benefits exercise has to offer, it needs to provide a significant cardiovascular stress to induce biochemical changes, like increasing mitochondria in the muscle to burn fat while one is sleeping.
It is also possible to overexcise and this Saturday I am running an article that clearly demonstrates that.
In addition to exercise there are a number of simple and highly effective lifestyle modifications that should radically improve the quality of breathing in those who have asthma.