Grant: Project Grant

Even though asthma is a disease of the lungs, people with asthma have an increased risk for cardiovascular disease such as heart attack and stroke. During asthma attacks, the risk for cardiovascular problems is especially high. The cardiovascular risk is also higher in older people and in women with asthma. It is not known why asthmatics have a higher cardiovascular risk and we aim to investigate this. Inflammation and poor function of the blood vessels are two risk factors for cardiovascular disease. We will study how an asthma attack affects inflammation in the lungs, the spill-over to the rest of the body and the blood vessel function. We think that the attack will increase inflammation and impair the function of the blood vessels. We will also test whether an 8 week rehabilitation program involving exercise is effective at decreasing the inflammation and preventing impaired blood vessel function after an induced asthma attack. This will be done in older asthmatics as they appear to be at the highest cardiovascular risk, and more often have difficulties in controlling their asthma. With this research we will understand more about how asthma and cardiovascular disease are linked and find out whether exercise is an effective way to improve cardiovascular risk and asthma control.