Exercise Induced Asthma and Airway Reactivity in Athletes

By non-invasive tools the investigators wish to characterize type of airway reaction to various provocative stimuli in athletes doing two different sort activities, Tennis or swimming. As controls are being used sedentary age-matched controls from the same region, exposed to the same school environment. Thus we wish to:

• explore the prevalence of positive mannitol reactivity among swimmers and tennis player and how this relates to symptoms, disease history and to a sport specific exercise provocation test.
• compare the results from sport specific testing with a standardized eucapnic hyperventilation test (EHV)
• compare the overall reactivity to mannitol or EHV among swimmers and tennis players compared to aged matched controls.
• explore the role by CC16 in airway reactivity to different provocative stimuli and to see whether there is a difference between different sport activities, different test protocols and between athletes and controls.
• explore evidence of eicosanoid related inflammatory reaction in athletes and controls in relation to different provocative stimuli

The study population consists of 100 elite swimmers, 100 elite tennis players and 100 non-elite, eged matched controls. In the latter group, 30 are aged matched non-atopic non-asthmatic controls.