�As we come close up to the Beijing Olympic Games, a review article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) reminds us that the heat and humidity in the Beijing region will present a formidable challenge to all athletes. Moreover, poor calibre of aura can also affect all athletes, especially those with asthma.
"With exposure to an environment that has poor quality, air pollutants may trigger symptoms of asthma in a dose-dependent manner," say Donald McKenzie and Louis-Philippe Boulet. "With the heights minute ventilation (amount of air breathed in one minute) seen during practice, the personal effects of exposure to these pollutants ar more noticeable in athletes than in non-athletes and likely more evident in people with asthma than in those without bronchial asthma."
Physical activity and steady exercise can buoy improve the control of asthma and is recommended to patients. However, there is mounting evidence that frequent, intense exercise by highly trained athletes could itself contribute to the development of asthma. Long-term endurance grooming may influence the construction and social occasion of airways in the lungs and make them hyperresponsive, tributary to the development of asthma.
McKenzie and Boulet say that athletes with asthma demand an personalized management design that inevitably to comply with the anti-doping regulations of the International Olympic Committee and the World Anti-Doping Agency. For exercise, athletes wHO wish to use an inhaled medication, such as one of the allowable beta-2 agonists, need to document the need for this medication by seize lung function testing and submit an application to the International Olympic Committee's Medical Commission.
China has implemented strategies in the Beijing region to ameliorate air caliber during the Olympic Games. "However, a significant pct of the pollution (about 35%) at the Olympic Stadium can be attributed to sources outside Beijing. Controlling only local sources of befoulment may non be sufficient to reach the airwave quality end set for the Beijing games," say McKenzie and Boulet.
"Asthma, outdoor air quality and the Olympic Games"
Donald C. McKenzie MD PhD, Louis-Philippe Boulet MD
Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ)
CMAJ 2008 0: cmaj.080982
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CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal)
CMAJ is the prima health sciences journal in Canada. CMAJ is a general medical journal publication original research and review articles, commentaries and editorials, practice updates, an humanities and ideas section and health intelligence. Published continuously since 1911, new issues are uploaded on wWW.cmaj.ca every moment Monday at 4:30 p.m. EST/EDT. wWW.cmaj.ca contains the complete editorial contents of CMAJ, supplemented by a variety of interactive features and additional content.
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