Study of airway inflammation in relation to exercise in high school athletes.

A high prevalence of asthma and exercise-induced bronchospasm has been reported in elite athletes. There is now substantial evidence that asthma-like symptoms are more common in elite athletes compared with age-matched control persons. Today, growing evidence exist that mechanical stress of (sustained) extreme breathing during training in combination with environmental conditions in which training is performed, leads to airway epithelial cell damage and mediator secretion that could initiate or increase the inflamatory processes in the airways, in the end leading to asthma. High school elite training programs are under development in Flanders, in order to select and train future elite athletes at young age. Little is known about the effects of sustained training on the potential development of asthma in adolescents during lung growth. We developed a non-invasive method to measure airway inflammation both in children (from 6 years old) and adults, based on induced sputum that can be used repetitively. Preliminary experiments in exercise-induced asthmatics showed increased levels of sputum chemokine mRNA after submaximal exercise compared to baseline levels. We will use this technique to study potential airway inflammatory characteristics that are induced by exercise and could predict the development of asthma in adolscents or athletes at young age.

Keywords:Aconcagua, Airway inflammation

Disciplines:Immunology