Abstract
For urban asthmatic children in low-income families options for exercise may be limited and typically include walking or playing outdoors in neighborhoods near busy streets or major roadways. Exercise in air polluted by traffic emissions may induce or increase airway inflammation in children with asthma, particularly those who produce decreased glutathione-S transferase as a result of deletions of one or more GST genes. This prospective cross-over study sought to determine if children with asthma experience increased airway inflammation or reduced lung function when exercising outdoors in naturalistic environments near major roadways as compared to exercising indoors. It also examined differences in risk between children with and without a common GST gene deletion. Results indicated that walking outdoors adversely affected small airway function, but absence of one or both alleles for the GSTM1 gene did not confer greater risk.
Patricia Newcomb, PhD, RN CPNP§, Maynard Dyson, MD,§§ Andrew Hunt, PhD,§ Jianling Li, PhD,§ Pamela Rast, PhD,§§§ and Nancy Rowe, PhD.§
§ University of Texas at Arlington
§§ Cook Children’s Medical Center
§§§ Texas Wesleyan University