Kenneth Gardner
ASTHMA IS the intermittent obstruction of the tubes that carry air to the lungs. This obstruction can be due to mucus, a constriction of the muscles that surround the tubes or to a swelling of the inner lining of the tubes. Asthma manifests itself as shortness of breath, a cough or a wheeze and it is caused by allergy, infection, irritants, physical factors or exercise.
Some persons have asthma only when they exercise. Eight to 12 minutes after they begin exercising they may become short of breath. If they are in good shape and can continue to exercise, their asthma will diminish and often disappear. However, if they stop they may continue to cough and be short of breath for several minutes to an hour afterwards.
Running is the exercise most likely to cause exercise-induced asthma and swimming is the least likely exercise to cause problems for persons with asthma. A cooling of the cells that line the tubes which bring air to and from the lungs causes this asthma and breathing dry air is the factor most likely to cause cooling.
When you exercise in a place in which the relative humidity of the air is low, increased amounts of moisture evaporate from the air tubes. Since heat is the activity of molecules, it follows that the more active the molecule, the hotter it is. During evaporation, the hotter more active molecules go off into the air and cause a lower temperature by leaving behind the cooler, slower moving ones.
EXERCISE-INDUCED ASTHMA
If you find that you have adverse difficulty breathing eight to 12 minutes after you start exercising or that you cough or wheeze after finishing, you may have exercise-induced asthma. Check with your physician to see if you have this condition.
If you do, you might be able to prevent it by changing your exercise to swimming. If not, you could set up a warm bath and close the bathroom door so that the air becomes saturated with water. In that kind of environment, you should be able to exercise without becoming short of breath.
Your doctor can prescribe medication that can efficiently prevent exercise-induced asthma. You can also train your body so that when you develop asthma eight to 12 minutes after you start exercising, you are strong enough to continue the exercise and, as mentioned before, continuing the exercise will cause the asthma to subside.
To become strong enough to continue after the attack starts, you can exercise regularly or jog about three miles or more, at a relatively fast pace, at least once each week. You need to exercise regularly because attacks are more likely if you only exercise occasionally.
You need to avoid exercising alone, however, and, keep your medication handy during your workout sessions. Warm up and cool down slowly to reduce the risk of an attack until you have overcome your asthma condition.
Kenneth Gardner is an exercise physiologist at the G.C. Foster College of Physical Education; email: yourhealth@gleanerjm.com.
