The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice
Original ArticlePhysical Activity and Exercise Capacity in Severe Asthma: Key Clinical Associations
Section snippets
Participant selection
A cross-sectional characterization study was conducted. Adults with severe asthma and sex- and age-matched controls were recruited and underwent a multidimensional assessment with objective measures of physical activity and sedentary time. Participants with severe asthma were recruited consecutively from the respiratory ambulatory care clinics at John Hunter Hospital (Newcastle, Australia) and the clinical research databases of the Priority Research Centre for Healthy Lungs at the University of
Characteristics of the study population
A total of 143 participants (those with severe asthma = 74, controls = 69) completed the study and 122 (those with severe asthma = 61, controls = 61) were included in the analysis; 21 participants were excluded because of not having valid accelerometer data (those with severe asthma = 8, controls = 5) or because they did not fulfill the disease inclusion criteria after assessment (those with severe asthma = 5, controls = 3). Participants with severe asthma had long-standing disease (median, 27
Discussion
This study has described the extent to which individuals with severe asthma engage in physical activity and sedentary time compared with a sex- and age-matched control population. We have demonstrated that people with severe asthma are considerably less active. In addition, we found that levels of activity and sedentary time are strongly and independently associated with exercise capacity, and to a lesser extent with other important clinical and biological outcomes. Our results also demonstrate
Conclusions
This study reports novel data on physical activity and sedentary time in patients with severe asthma. We found that severe asthma is associated with lower levels of MVPA. Higher levels of activity and lower levels of sedentary time were linked to better exercise capacity, asthma control, and decreased systemic inflammation. Our results highlight a need to develop and test interventions in patients with severe asthma that aim to improve exercise capacity and systemic inflammation by increasing
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This research was supported by a University of Newcastle and Priority Research Centre for Healthy Lungs postgraduate scholarship and the Hunter Medical Research Institute, Australia.
Conflicts of interest: L. Cordova-Rivera has received research support from John Hunter Hospital Charitable Trust and Hunter Medical Research Institute. P. G. Gibson has participated in educational symposia funded by AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, and Novartis; has participated in studies funded by GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca; and holds a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Practitioner Fellowship. P. A. Gardiner is supported by an NHMRC-Australian Research Council Dementia Research Development Fellowship and has participated in an educational symposium funded by Boehringer Ingelheim. V. M. McDonald has received research support from John Hunter Hospital Charitable Trust and Hunter Medical Research Institute, NHMRC Translating Research Into Practice (TRIP) fellowship, University of Newcastle, Cyclopharm, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, and Lung Foundation Australia; has received lecture fees for participation in educational symposia funded by AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, and Menarini; has participated in advisory boards for GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca and Menarini; and has received travel support from Menarini. The rest of the authors declare that they have no relevant conflicts of interest.