Abstract

The concept of respiratory heat loss as the initiating stimulus for airflow obstruction after exercise in persons with asthma serves either to explain or,possibly, to reconcile the many apparently divergent studies in the litera- ture. Evidence is sufficiently compelling that until the respiratory heat lossis matched on the basis of different tasks and before, during and after all interventions, no firm conclusions can be drawn about the pathophysiology of this disease in response to exercise. The meachanism is still unknown whereby heat loss initiates or produces airway obstruction in persons with asthma - whether mediators of the Type I hypersensitivity reaction are involved or whether imbalance of several modulating factors is somehow created. It is pos-sible that through further inquiry, not only extant questions concerning exer-cise as a stimulus to asthma will be answered but some more pervasive princip-les concerning other stimuli and the disease in general will be uncovered. Verf.-Referat