asthma in local newspaper

Hi all-

A short article on asthma and exercise caught my eye in the morning paper today. The gist of it was that asthmatics should be able to exercise as any other person would. This is of course very true in the vast majority of cases. What got me was the very last sentence : ""Exercise-induced asthma should be regarded as a marker of poor control and a need to increase fitness rather (than) as an excuse for inactivity"".

Now, it is very true that experiencing EIA means that the asthma is generally not under control. And yes, being physically fit is good for everyone and even helps breathing. BUT, I thought it was rather irresponsible not to mention that it is imperative to get the asthma under control with medication BEFORE attempting to get into shape if you are having symptoms when exercising. I don't want to over-hype it, but it seems like dangerous advice to me.

Any thoughts? Is it normal to think that that was a little bit off?

Best wishes,

Brynne

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Absolutely. In fact, ""Exercise-induced asthma should be regarded as a marker of poor control and a need to increase fitness rather (than) as an excuse for inactivity"" is complete and utter tosh.

I reckon CathBear is fit - her best 10k run time is 57 minutes. She's certainly got her asthma under control. She has excercise-induced asthma. So, I believe, does Paul Scholes - not exactly a prime example of an unfit and inactive person either!

Which newspaper was it? I'd be intrigued to see if the article is available online, and even more intrigued about the possibility of getting AUK to write to them to correct their dangerous misconceptions.

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Here is the link to it Steve -canada.com/calgaryherald/ne...

I don't know how long the link will be active. The paper is the Calgary Herald. I would love to see AUK getting their noses in there but don't know since it's a Canadian paper? I'm thinking of writing to them myself.

Brynne

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From my experience a level of fitness may prolong the point at which exercise-induced asthma strikes but that's about it! If you have achieved control over your condition and are fit you may also be able to exercise through the trigger and quell it, but that's about the best it gets!!

I might add that I do not believe that EIA is necessarily a marker of poor control unless it happens doing very easy exercises where aerobics are pretty low.

Twizzle

PS This could be borne out if the top 10 fittest most controlled mild asthmatics from this site were to train for the Olympics in 2012, to do the 400 metres. If inhalers were prohibited for a few hours prior to the run, to disallow tricking our breathing systems how many of us would not be dealing with a touch of the old EIA breathlessness, however slight, towards the end of the race??!!! Count me out though!