Article 68836 of sci.med:
Path: bigblue.oit.unc.edu!concert!gatech!mailer.acns.fsu.edu!pepkemac.scri.fsu.edu!user
From: pepke@scri.fsu.edu (Eric Pepke)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Allergies, Asthma, and Fitness
Followup-To: sci.med
Date: 17 May 1994 15:37:26 GMT
Organization: Florida State University, but I don't speak for them
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I have a question about how general fitness affects allergies and asthma. 
It's based on a curious experience of mine.  I used to suffer quite badly
from allergies and somewhat from asthma.  I was never hospitalized for an
asthma attack, but I once came reasonably close to anaphylactic shock from
being at a party where a cat was in the other room.  I used to have to
inhale quite a lot of albuterol every day just to get around.

For quite independent reasons, I altered a number of things about my body. 
I switched to a low-fat, limited-calorie diet.  I drastically increased the
amount of exercise I was getting.  I went from a fatty 250+ pounds to a
muscular 200 pounds.

The curious thing is that symptoms of both my asthma and my allergies have
almost completely gone away.  The improvement has been quite dramatic and
totally unexpected.  I am certain that it was causal.

My question is, what are possible mechanisms for that causal relationship? 
The asthma I can imagine, as it is easier for even impaired lungs to get
oxygen for a smaller body, and the lack of a gut makes breathing work
better from a mechanical perspective.  However, I am stumped about the
allergies.

Eric Pepke
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute
Florida State University
pepke@scri.fsu.edu


