Inactivity increases hospitalisation risk in asthma patients

MedWire News: Asthma patients with low levels of physical activity are significantly more likely to be admitted to hospital for at least one overnight stay than their active counterparts, research shows.

Healthcare use in patients with asthma is affected by many factors, including sex and ethnicity,” explain Shilpa Dogra (York University, Toronto, Canada) and team.

But they add: “The role of physical activity and body mass index in this relationship is unknown.”

To address this, the researchers studied questionnaires completed by 6835 people with asthma and 78,051 without the disease, aged between 20 and 64 years, who participated in the Canadian Community Health Survey.

The team found that individuals with asthma were 2.3 times more likely to have had an overnight hospital stay and 1.5 times more likely to have had four or more overnight hospital stays than those without the respiratory condition. Asthma patients were also 2.4 times more likely to have had three or more doctor consultations than other participants.

Interestingly, hospital visits and doctor consultations were significantly more frequent among inactive than active asthma patients, particularly if the former were also obese.

Indeed, inactive, obese people with asthma were 2.35 times more likely to have an overnight hospital stay and 2.76 times more likely to have three or more physician consultations than active, normal-weight patients with the respiratory condition.

Commenting on the findings, published in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, Dr Dogra said: “The most important thing to take from this study is that asthmatics, whether obese or normal weight, can benefit greatly from adopting and maintaining an active lifestyle."

She added: “Higher activity levels not only help the individual with asthma, but also have the potential to relieve some of the burden being placed on the healthcare system."